Centre earned ₹100 crores by sharing vehicle registration data with companies such as BMW, Axis Bank, Bajaj Allianz, L&T and others

• Union minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Parliament that the government had earned over ₹100 crores by providing access to Vahan and Sarathi databases to private entities.
• The Vahan and Sarathi databases contain details of registered vehicles and driving licenses in the country.
• The minister told Parliament that the data had been shared with170 parties including law enforcement agencies, the home ministry, auto, freight and insurance companies.
• Although the government last year in June junked the policy citing potential misuse of personal information and privacy issues — the data continues to remain with the companies.

On Thursday (February 12), the union transport minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Parliament that the government had earned over ₹100 crores by selling Vahan and Sarathi databases to private entities.

The Vahan and Sarathi databases contain details of registered vehicles and driving licenses in the country. However, the ministry has now discarded the bulk data sharing policy issued in 2019. The minister told Parliament that the data had been shared with 170 parties, including law enforcement agencies, the home ministry, auto, freight and insurance companies. The list includes BMW, Axis Bank, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, L&T Financial Services, and Mercedes Benz.

"The revenue collected by the Government by providing access to Vahan and Sarathi databases is ₹1,11,38,79,757," said Gadkari in response to a question in the Lok Sabha.

Your personal data remain with companies

Although the government last year in June junked the policy citing potential misuse of personal information and privacy issues — the data continues to remain with the companies.

In another response to a question on Gadkari said that there's no proposal under consideration for the government that would direct the companies to delete the data accessed by private entities.

The government decided earlier that the sharing of vehicular data will now be done on the basis of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. The government decided to share only the reports generated on the basis of the analysis of the vehicular data available in the National Register.

Under the policy, the commercial organizations and individuals seeking bulk data will have to pay an amount of ₹3 crore. Also, the educational institutions could use the data for research purposes for ₹5 lakh.

“It was decided that rather than sharing the bulk data with any company or organization on the cost basis, reports generated on the basis of analysis of the vehicular data available in the National Register on the portal may be shared for use of Citizens or Stakeholders,” the government has said while replacing the policy with Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.

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