Parliamentary panel calls for redressal of citizens' concerns over privacy issues of DigiLocker

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology on Monday said that citizens' concerns over privacy issues of DigiLocker must be addressed.

The committee submitted its report on Monday on the Demand for Grants.

On the privacy issues, the IT Secretary said, "It is completely there based on the global norms. It is based on consent. If anything is done, it is with the express and nuanced consent of the individual. Nothing can be presumed as consent. It has to be explicit consent that we take and only then we proceed because this is a sensitive area. So, we are mindful of that. It is part of our architecture and design."

"But DigiLocker by itself is a very potent instrument for enabling people to do away with the need to carry or look for paper records or look for printed certificates, and completely switch over to a digital way of working. It is the same type of convenience which we have hitherto got from Aadhaar as a digital identity rather than a physical card. That is important. We are trying to bring the same convenience to a large number of other documents as well," he added.

Asked if there is any restriction on the volume of documents to be stored in theDigiLocker, the Secretary submitted, "If you upload your own documents, then there is no restriction up to 10 GB. All the digitally signed documents are already available from the departments. You have to only link it up with your DigiLocker and you are able to get access to your documents like driving license, Aadhaar card, etc, then the same can be shown if you are stopped by traffic police inspector."

Digital Locker provides an ecosystem with collection of repositories and gateways for issuers to upload the documents in the digital repositories.

According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, there are more than 9.23 crore registered users of DigiLocker so far. 486 crore authentic documents have been issued. 1,695 issuers and 349 requestor organizations have been on-boarded.

( With inputs from ANI )