SC rejects ADR plea to get permit access to voters list in machine-readable voters list
Might compromise voters' privacy, says bench
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court has orally refused to permit making the machine-readable voters list available, clarifying that this might compromise the voters’ privacy.
The SC bench of Justices Surya Kant and Bagchi, heard on Tuesday the petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, which will be held by the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and West Bengal, among other states, according to a report by LiveLaw.
The judges said that, as the Election Commission of India (ECI) held the voters’ data in trust, it had the right to adopt methods to ensure the data remained protected. The judges, however, directed the ECI to find password-protection techniques that give easy access to an individual but prevent unauthorized access.
Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who represented the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said that the NGO had filed an interlocutory application seeking a direction to the ECI to provide the 2002 voters list in machine-readable format to help voters confirm if their parents’ names are included.
The lawyer also said that no prejudice would be caused if the ECI made the data available in searchable form.
Justice Bagchi, however, expressed privacy concerns regarding sharing of voters’ data in the format and, referring to an earlier case, said that electoral rolls need not be furnished in machine-readable format.
The judge said that, as it was a matter of privacy and data protection, making the machine-readable format could open doors to ‘data mining’ by third parties. Also, he said that the suggestion may be deliberated upon by the parties.
"Let's get the ECI's response on what kind of dangers it can pose", said Justice Kant.
"A prejudice is [per se]... data available at large for mining, irrespective of individuals, any agent... have to take into consideration the issues of individual privacy, collective protection of data of Indian citizens. This is not adversarial. It has a polycentric impact. Independent of the rights of a person who is seeking to vote, the data itself is a valuable asset. That the ECI is holding in trust. What you may suggest, and the ECI may consider, that the individual may have a password to access the data. That's how the individual can verify his data from the encrypted database of ECI. The data is valuable asset entrusted to the ECI. So ECI is entitled to have layers of privacy on the data", Justice Bagchi stated.
On Bhushan mentioning ADR's application seeking inter-alia electoral roll data in machine-readable form, the bench issued notice for the ECI to respond. The judges found "good" a suggestion made by ADR that de-duplication software available with ECI be used to tackle multiple entries of one individual in the rolls.
The Court sought the ECI's response to the application and posted the matter to November 26.
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3 officials of private banks arrested in Gujarat in Rs 2,500 crore cyber fraud; 20 held so far
Rajkot (PTI): Three officials of leading private banks were arrested for their alleged involvement in a Rs 2,500-crore cyber fraud racket in Gujarat's Rajkot district, bringing the number of those held so far in the case to 20, police said on Monday.
Those arrested were identified as Maulik Kamani, a personal manager at Yes Bank in Padadhari; Kalpesh Dangariya, a manager at Axis Bank in Jamnagar; and Anurag Baldha, a personal banker with HDFC Bank, Rajkot (Rural) Superintendent of Police Vijay Gurjar said.
Dangariya and Baldha were previously employed with Yes Bank, he added.
Kamani allegedly assisted the earlier arrested accused in opening and managing suspicious accounts. He also helped bypass banking alerts triggered by high-value transactions by submitting additional documentation to keep accounts active, the SP said.
Kamani was allegedly involved in cash withdrawals that were later routed through hawala channels (illegal money transfer system), supported by digital evidence recovered from his mobile device, he added.
Dangariya is accused of facilitating the opening of fraudulent accounts using fake or misrepresented identities, police said.
He also assisted in structuring documentation, including Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC)-related papers, to prevent transactions from being flagged as suspicious, they said.
On the other hand, Baldha opened new accounts after verification and certification processes as part of the racket, Gurjar informed.
All the three accused are in police custody, while others are in jail under judicial remand, SP said.
So far, police have identified 85 bank accounts linked to the racket with 535 complaints filed on the cyber crime portal.
The total transaction linked to the cyber fraud exceeds Rs 2,500 crore, police said.
The earlier fraud amount was pegged by police at Rs 1,500 crore.
