Mobile Apps Allegedly Used To Identify Owner And Torch Vehicle. This Allegation Is Alarming
Over the past few days hundreds of homes, shops, and vehicles have been set on fire in Northeast Delhi by the mobs which have been running riot.
Now there is a new allegation that is giving an all-new dimension to the attacks.?
Several people have alleged that the riotous mob was using apps that provide details about the ownership of vehicles to identify and set them on fire.
There are several apps available online through which one can access details including the ownership of any vehicle, simply by looking up the registration number of it.
These apps use the publicly available details from the Vahan?database to identify the owner of any vehicle.
Vahan is the government¡¯s web-based database of all driving licences and vehicle registrations.
The information, including the name and addresses of the vehicle owners, can be searched through the portal by anyone.
Though it is yet to be substantiated beyond doubt that the rioters used the publicly listed information to identify their targets, there is a growing call to restrict it.
The Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation has expressed concern over reports that the database for vehicle registration called Vahan was exploited by malicious actors in identifying vehicles owned by Muslim vehicles, which were allegedly being burnt down.?
They have also written to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (MoRTH) in this regard.?
"Deeply concerned that government administered databases could inadvertently mobilise threats of violence and public property damage, we have written to different departments of the Union Government and the Chief Minister of Delhi articulating our concerns with the Vahan database and immediate actionable steps that we expect leadership to take," the letter said.
According to IFF, in the absence of personal data protection laws to protect people¡¯s online privacy, the Government has been increasingly centralising and aggregating government databases, to extract economic value.?
"These efforts have little regard for individual privacy and do not seek the informed consent of individuals before their personally identifiable information is integrated or used in these datasets," it further alleged.
They have suggested that the government should immediately stop public and private access to databases like Vahan and Sarathi and seek a legal opinion from Union Ministry of Law and Justice on the legality of MoRTH monetisation of these databases. They have also demanded that aggregation of government databases which lead to seamless sharing of individuals¡¯ personal and sensitive personal data without any meaningful consent should be stopped and issue an urgent advisory for third party mobile applications to remove their applications from respective mobile stores.?
