Karnataka designs consent system for citizens to share personal data

Karnataka on Thursday unveiled the e-Sahamathi platform, a consent-driven system that authorities say will give citizens complete control over sharing their personal data with private companies.

Private or public companies and nonprofits willing to use the e-Sahamathi platform to access citizen data will have to pay a one-time registration fee of Rs 50,000.

“Citizens get full control over their data and the government won’t have any role in what they choose to share,” Additional Chief Secretary (e-Governance) Rajeev Chawla said.

The platform, which will use Aadhaar authentication, will act as a consent manager for citizens who are data principals. “Citizens are the owners of their personal data. Government departments that collect and maintain citizen information are data fiduciaries,” Chawla said.

The government expects students and job seekers to be the immediate users of e-Sahamathi .

“Let’s say a student has landed a job with Wipro and the company requires his or her academic credentials. The student can log into e-Sahamathi and give consent for his or her data to be shared with Wipro. The government has the student’s academic data, which will be shared once there is consent,” Chawla explained.

So far, the government has academic data of students from 63 out of 65 universities in Karnataka. The IIM Bengaluru and IIIT Dharwad are yet to come onboard. “We have SSLC marks cards from 2003, PU marks cards from 2008 and university certificates of the last 10 years,” he said.

Citizens can specify the purpose and validity of the consent. “The citizen can revoke consent anytime,” Chawla pointed out. “e-Sahamathi per se is data blind. So, we don’t know what data is being shared.”

Allaying fears over misuse of data, Chawla said a committee will approve data seekers who apply for registration on e-Sahamathi . “We want reputed, big companies to use e-Sahamati and not spurious ones,” he said. “Also, once the Personal Data Protection Bill is approved (in Parliament), then citizens can sue data seekers for misuse of their data.”

Chawla said e-Sahamathi is a more advanced version of DigiLocker. “DigiLocker is where you store data, which may not be genuine. Data shared through e-Sahamathi is genuine as it comes from the government,” he said.

e-Sahamathi will be available in the form of a mobile app and web portal. It will become operational after a formal launch by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai soon.

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