India: PM's Party Accused of Selling Citizens' Private Data

Sitaram Yechury, the chief of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), recently accused Narendra Modi's government of selling personal details of Indians to a private firm, Fast Lane Automotive Private Limited (FLA).

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Yechury attacked Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through a series of tweets and alleged that the “personal privacy of all Indians is up for sale!”

He added that despite Modi's government has scrapped the bulk motor-vehicle data sharing policy because of concerns over privacy and misuse, “it sold the country’s total vehicle registration data to a private company.” 

These allegations came after news website The Wire claimed that the federal transport ministry had already sold a copy of the country`s entire vehicle registration database to FLA when it scrapped this data's sharing policy in 2020. Although the deal with FLA ended in 2016, FLA continues to have commercial access to the data.

Introduced in 2019, the bulk data sharing policy allowed the federal government to sell data gathered from citizens’ vehicle registration certificates and driving licenses. 

The Wire claimed it got access to the information through several Right To Information (RTI) requests filed by independent data governance researcher Srinivas Kodali.

“Within a year of accessing this data, the company’s (FLA) turnover zoomed by a whopping 163 times – up from $3017 (INR 225,000) to $496,087 (INR 30.70 million). The company’s revenues continue to grow to date on the back of this database, scrutiny of its financial returns over the past five years indicates. In fact, it saw a rise of 333 times over the period under review,” The Wire further added.