Re: 2015 SCJ 177

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 06:30:35 -0700

Hi Ish,
At 03:33 03-06-2015, Ish Sookun wrote:
>That is one of the elements I've argued in the past. If the biometric
>ID card is depicted as safe and necessary for e-Government, how does
>one effect online transactions without validating the ownership of the
>card?

According to a presentation by Mr R. Hawabhay, Acting Director,
Central Informatics Bureau, there will be "use of the Card Validation
service and fingerprint readers by businesses to validate the
identity of citizens".

>I was reading a speech[1] dated 29 March 2012 that mentions the MNIC,
>e-health, e-education, e-judiciary, Crime Occurrence Tracking System
>(COTS). Is privacy a minor issue when biometric data is collected at a
>time when the mentioned projects are tossed?

 From what I read in the local press the project was about a
"platform for e-government". There was very little information in
those press articles about what that is about. In my opinion,
privacy is not a minor issue. I guess that some of the biometric
data was included as part of the validation service. The problem is
that there isn't any information about how that validation service is
supposed to work. If you want services related to the ones mentioned
above you would have to consider the security and privacy aspects or
else you can forget about using technology.

>In that same speech, I came to know that there is a website for local
>authorities[2]. Its disclaimer page is missing. I could not login
>using the account I have on govmu.org. Hmm, let me guess, the website
>dates back to 2012, so it explains. I see the website runs on Oracle
>Application Server, which is different from the Government Portal. I
>do not know how much this particular website could have cost.

I did not know about that web site. The project value was more than
"Rs 100 m". There isn't any privacy policy on la.govmu.org

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Wed Jun 03 2015 - 13:35:15 PST