The Road Transport and Highways Ministry has created "Bulk Data Sharing Policy & Procedure" for sharing certain fields in bulk data of vehicle registration.

Recently when the Economic Survey was released, one of the provisions in it talked of how data can be used to generate revenue. Now, it seems that the government is already doing it. In reply to a few questions in Rajya Sabha, Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has revealed that government is selling vehicle registration and driving licence data of Indians and earning money from it.

From the replies provided by the government in Rajya Sabha it is not clear how, if at all, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is taking care of privacy concerns and challenges that may arise from the sale of vehicle registration and driving licence data.

In his question, Husain Dalwai, a Congress MP in Rajya Sabha, asked "if government has intended to sell Vahan and Sarathi database in bulk, (and) if so, the estimated revenue for such a sale".

In reply, the government on July 8 revealed that it has provided 87 private and 32 government entities access to the Vahan and Sarathi database, and has collected Rs 65 crore so far by giving such access.

Vahan and Sarathi deal with data related to vehicle registration and driving licenses, respectively. The ministry maintains the Centralized National Registry through the National Informatics Centre and it has approximately 25 crore vehicle registration records and 15 crore driving license records.

The Road Transport and Highways Ministry has also created "Bulk Data Sharing Policy & Procedure" for sharing certain fields in bulk data of vehicle registration. "The organization seeking bulk data can obtain the data with an amount of Rs 3 crore for the FY 2019-20," Gadkari said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

The educational institutions can obtain the data for "research purposes and internal use only". The bulk data is provided to them one time on payment of Rs 5 lakh for the financial Year 2019-20, revealed the government.

"The revenue collected by the Government by providing access to Vahan and Sarathi database is Rs 65 crore till date," Gadkari said.

The government has also linked Vahan and Sarathi with stolen vehicles data from National Crime Records Bureau.

In India, sale of bulk data -- even data that has private details -- is common. But so far we saw that most of this data was scrapped, likely in an unauthorised way, from poorly secured websites and servers by private entities, who would then sell it. This is first time government has revealed that it is also selling data, likely for profit.

It is worth noting that in India we don't have a proper data protection law even though the Supreme Court earlier declared privacy a Fundamental Right under Article 21. However, in the absence of a proper mechanism to enforce privacy practices and due to lack of awareness, the concept of privacy is mostly a joke in country for now.

From the answers provided by the government in Rajya Sabha it is not clear how private companies, which have bought vehicle registration and driving licence data, are using it. But it is possible that this data can be valuable to not only automakers, who may use the information taken from it for precise customer targeting, but also to political parties and insurance companies.