JAMMU: The Jammu & Kashmir administration is planning to create an authentic database of all families in the Union territory with each of them having a unique alpha-numeric code — the objective being easy selection of eligible beneficiaries of various social welfare schemes.
The proposed move to allot “Family ID” has been welcomed by BJP but panned by other parties which raised concerns over personal data safety.
At the recent national conference on e-governance in Katra in Reasi district, Jammu & Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and chief minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar released the Digital J&K Vision Document, unveiling the government plan to create an authentic, verified and reliable database of all families of the Union territory.
According to the vision document, “Each family will be provided with a unique alpha-numeric code called J&K Family ID. The data available in the family database would be used to determine eligibility through automatic selection of beneficiaries for receiving social benefits.”
“The database would identify each and every family in J&K and would collect the basic data of the family, provided with the consent of the family, in a digital format.”
The document further reads that all the applicable laws and regulations in respect of data protection shall be complied with in the management of data.
To thwart risks and protect sensitive and critical data, it said the Jammu & Kashmir government plans to work on an information security policy and also envisages formulation of appropriate cyber security framework. The Congress, National Conference and the PDP slammed the proposed move.
Congress chief spokesperson and former legislator Ravinder Sharma questioned the government’s intention and also its capacity to protect such digital databases from cyber attacks.
Referring to cyber attacks by Chinese entities and ransomware attack on the AIIMS servers, he said in such a situation, protection of personal data of the people is a major challenge.
National Conference provincial president Rattan Lal Gupta termed the exercise “unproductive use of resources”.
However, BJP welcomed the move and said the people who have to stand in queues to get various benefits and certificates will benefit once a verified database is prepared.
As far as data protection is concerned, the officer said, the Jammu & Kashmir government will soon issue a notification under Section 70 of the Information Technology (IT) Act to declare all information structures of government offices and public sector undertakings as protected systems.
The proposed move to allot “Family ID” has been welcomed by BJP but panned by other parties which raised concerns over personal data safety.
At the recent national conference on e-governance in Katra in Reasi district, Jammu & Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and chief minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar released the Digital J&K Vision Document, unveiling the government plan to create an authentic, verified and reliable database of all families of the Union territory.
According to the vision document, “Each family will be provided with a unique alpha-numeric code called J&K Family ID. The data available in the family database would be used to determine eligibility through automatic selection of beneficiaries for receiving social benefits.”
“The database would identify each and every family in J&K and would collect the basic data of the family, provided with the consent of the family, in a digital format.”
The document further reads that all the applicable laws and regulations in respect of data protection shall be complied with in the management of data.
To thwart risks and protect sensitive and critical data, it said the Jammu & Kashmir government plans to work on an information security policy and also envisages formulation of appropriate cyber security framework. The Congress, National Conference and the PDP slammed the proposed move.
Congress chief spokesperson and former legislator Ravinder Sharma questioned the government’s intention and also its capacity to protect such digital databases from cyber attacks.
Referring to cyber attacks by Chinese entities and ransomware attack on the AIIMS servers, he said in such a situation, protection of personal data of the people is a major challenge.
National Conference provincial president Rattan Lal Gupta termed the exercise “unproductive use of resources”.
However, BJP welcomed the move and said the people who have to stand in queues to get various benefits and certificates will benefit once a verified database is prepared.
As far as data protection is concerned, the officer said, the Jammu & Kashmir government will soon issue a notification under Section 70 of the Information Technology (IT) Act to declare all information structures of government offices and public sector undertakings as protected systems.
