The State government, by making available online the details of the beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS), may have inadvertently compromised their privacy.
Details ranging from monthly income and electoral card details to the consumer numbers of power and cooking gas connections of 1.5 crore Keralites are now available on the Civil Supplies website, open for misuse by private companies and individuals. The massive amount of data, conveniently available for each ward, is a boon for marketing companies as well.
It was last week that the Civil Supplies Department released the draft list of 1.54 crore beneficiaries, prepared as part the Food Security Act, 2013, on its website www.civilsupplieskerala.gov.in. The draft list was published so that the public could verify their personal data and apply for corrections, if necessary, before the printing of the new ration cards next year. The detailed list of beneficiaries for each ward is available as a single report, from which the ration card number of any beneficiary can be obtained.
This number can be used in the ‘View ration card details’ page, where the personal details of all the individuals of that particular family are available.
“This list was published with a good intention and the list was required too. But, it should have been made available by protecting the data from misuse. They could have used a password protected system to protect the data. In the wrong hands, these data can be used to duplicate your SIM card or even reset your Internet banking password,” says tech analyst V.K. Adarsh.
The site is designed, developed and hosted by the National Informatics Centre.
