Northlines Newsdesk
Jammu Tawi: The Jammu Kashmir administration is all set 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 an easy selection of eligible beneficiaries of various social welfare schemes. The proposal is conceived in view of surging cyber crimes and the need for awareness of social welfare schemes for every family in Jammu and Kashmir,
At the recent national conference on e-governance in Katra in Reasi district, Jammu and 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 JK 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 and Kashmir government plans to work on an information security policy and also envisages formulation of an appropriate cyber security framework.
- Once the data in the JK Family ID database is authenticated and verified, a beneficiary will not be required to submit any more documents to avail a service.
Will creating Digital IDs pose risk?
The proposed move to allot “Family ID” has been welcomed by the BJP but panned by other parties which raised concerns over personal data safety.
Senior Superintendent of Police, Security, M Y Kichloo said vulnerabilities and possibilities of cyber attacks will remain when it comes to digital storage of data.
“We will face the same problems in Jammu and Kashmir which are faced across the country viz- a-viz data. Whenever a database is prepared by the government, an IT audit is conducted by experts,” he said.
As far as data protection is concerned, the officer said, the Jammu and 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.
“In case of a data breach, the quantum of punishment would be 10 years which would work as a deterrent,” Kichloo said.
Congress chief spokesperson and former legislator Ravinder Sharma questioned the government's intention and capacity to protect such digital databases from cyber attacks.(Agencies)
