NATIONAL OPEN DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM: THE FUTURE OF EMPOWERED INDIA.
This article is written by Drishti Sharma, a Fourth Year B.A. LLB (Hons.) Student at Amity Law School, Amity University Rajasthan.
As India looks to adopt the maxim “Minimum government and Maximum governance” the role of the digital ecosystem has become very important. The Ministry of Electronics of Information Technology has released a consultation paper on the strategy of National Open Digital Ecosystem. A lot has been said and written about the same. This thought-provoking article by our Content Contributor Drishti Sharma feels that the motive for bringing this type of digital e-governance to the market is just to overcome the government deficit and improve the life of every individual in the society making their work easy. The author argues that if we look at cybersecurity in India it must ensure at most security of the data’s provided by the citizens and the government thereby should adapt the National Open Digital ecosystem to such peculiarities of India.
Introduction
As India looks to adopt the maxim “Minimum government and Maximum governance” i.e. to bring the government closer to the citizens so that they can actively participate in the governance process, the role of the digital ecosystem has become very important. Therefore, India has made its way from collecting the public records from offline to online medium i.e. has led itself to the path of digitalization of public records. The Ministry of Electronics of Information Technology has released a consultation paper on the strategy of National Open Digital Ecosystem (NODE), which aims at the principle of providing the citizen the next generation open and secure delivery platforms. This has been seen to become the evolution in the field of the e-governance in India. So talking about the NODE or Govt. tech. 3.0, it states that it is a transparent governance mechanism which enables technology collaboration among citizens and government to transform cultural outcomes. The main objective behind this system was to integrate all the datas across the department and the ministries, to provide the business oriented people to come up with their start up business ideas to build solution for the Government. Some of the examples that best defines this NODE are the contact tracing Aarogya Setu App to prevent the spread of corona virus, UPI, GSTIN, e- transport project named Vahan which helped ministry digitalize issuing of vehicle registrations and driver’s licenses, Diksha for the government school teachers, Digilocker. It is estimated that by 2030’s the NODE would gain around $500 billion in economic value with some huge cultural and governance benefits[1].
There are many advantages and disadvantages also regarding this NODE schemes of the Government. Firstly, talking about the ADVANTAGES of this Govt. tech 3.0 :
- It basically integrates the centre and the state with respect to the services provided by the Government. For Example; the e- transport project MORTH, the project foremost work is to integrate the National vehicle registration and State vehicle registration together with all its data interlinked across the databases of the government institutions like police, Crime Records Bureau and also some private institutions like banks and insurance companies.
- It basically enhances the potential of Artificial Intelligence to provide the citizens an open and secure delivery platform and to secure the various path-breaking ODEs which avail in India already.
Challenges
But at the end everything comes with a cost and so do with this open digital ecosystem. The challenges faced by the NODE are:
- The cyber world has always been an easy prey for the people to use things against each other and here also the possible weaponization of data is a primary issue related to such digital initiatives. The privacy can be violated in here.
- The state loses its domain to a maximum extend as all the work are centralized to the centre, which henceforth leads to Federal issues. There is an excessive interference of the centre in the State’s affair. For Example, the e-transport project has totally centralized the governance of transport which is a state subject according to the Constitution.
- Another important challenge faced by the system is the security issues which ensure end- to-end encryption protection of data throughout the whole ecosystem so that the data cannot be breached. One Example is the breach of Aadhar database which is said to be main identification of the Indian Citizen which was not even sufficiently addressed even though the UIDAI was solely responsible for it. Another issue was that in the e-transport project any person was able to see the personal information of any vehicle owner.
- The main challenge was faced by the NODE regarding the e- Estonia model which was cited as successful. But a company named Mozilla provided proof that its features like audit trails for accessing all citizens data but not limiting what can be done through this project would lead to the infringement of privacy which showcased the model as ‘not perfect’.
Suggestive Steps
There are some suggestive steps that the Government can put on this NODE system, such as:
- Firstly, the Government should address the privacy issues and design more privacy-secured databases and it should be regulated accordingly in respect with the provisions of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.[2]
- The computerized coded rules should be transparent through design principles and legislation and should be guided by factors like value, trust, accessibility and affordability.
- It should be always citizen-centric driven, so that the people get easy access through The portal should be accessible by all sorts of age group people and it must create a community engagement.
- Rather than completely centralizing the e- transport data governance in the hand of centre, it must also apply to the state also.
- The NODEs needs to have protections against selling their data’s to the third party i.e. private sector. It should also prevent automated algorithmic decision- making and sharing of data even within the close circle of officials of government without the consent of the user.
Conclusion
The motive for bringing this type of digital e-governance to the market is just to overcome the government deficit and improve the life of very individual in the society making their work easy. But, if we look at cyber security in India it must ensure at most security of the data’s provided by the citizens and the government thereby should adapt the National Open Digital ecosystem to such peculiarities of India. And focusing towards the design choice the government should focus on the technological and governance architecture which would help in more community engagement and would also provide a secure portal for the citizens to access to. The NODEs should more of expand their potential towards other sectors like the health sector, law and order, rural sectors, agriculture etc and should emphasis on improving it as they can provide ease to the public. In order to reduce the openness of the personal data’s of the individuals the NODE should therefore have strong governance framework ensuring fairness in sharing the information to the stakeholders while keeping an eye over their behavior. If these things are done in an organized manner then the government can build a more resilient and empowered India.
[1]Surabhi Agarwal, “Govt’s changing the way health data is captured in India”, The Economic Times, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/make-data-with-history/articleshow/74683861.cms?from=mdr
[2] The bill exempt anyone from using anyone’s processing personal data without the individual’s consent. It also contains two clauses purpose limitation and collective limitation to limit the collection of data of what is specifically need