NEW DELHI: Weeks after the catering and ticketing branch of the Railways IRCTC launched a call for tenders to hire a consultant to monetize its “digital data”, including the passenger database, the Ministry of Railways is now reviewing the revenue generation plan. The IRCTC’s plan to generate Rs 1,000 crore revenue from two data monetization series has come under criticism due to data privacy concerns.
Sources in the ministry said the government would prefer to wait for the passage of the Data protection bill in Parliament before moving forward with this plan.
The IRCTC has set the August 29 deadline for submitting bids for the advisory service. Officials said there is no question that the agency monetizes data relating to individual customers. “We have launched a tender just for hiring a consultant, who will study and suggest the road map for data monetization keeping in mind existing laws so that individual privacy is not violated,” said one of them. .
The offer document states that the consultant must study the customer data, including basic data of individual passengers and customers of goods, packages and other applications aimed at the public, such as name, age, mobile number, gender, address, Email ID, number of passengers, travel class and payment methods and login / password. It will also have to study digital data systems that generate behavioral data such as passenger flow, travel frequency, travel time and booking time.
TOI learned that the necessary approvals were taken before the IRCTC launched the tender and it was decided that only generic and anonymous data would be monetized, meaning that no individual data or details will be monetized by the government agency.
In a series of tweets, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) – Indian group for the defense of digital rights – said: “The goal of maximizing profit will result in greater incentives for data collection, violating the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation. improper use of Vahan databases amplify fears of mass surveillance and security risks. ”
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