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Minister assures no foreign access to data in digital ID initiative
View(s):By Sandun Jayawardana
The government insists that safeguards are in place to ensure that no foreign entity will have access to the personal data of Sri Lankan citizens through the upcoming digital ID project.
Moreover, after coming to power, the National People’s Power (NPP) government has amended certain clauses in the proposed agreement with the Indian Government on building the digital platform for the ID project, Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne told the Sunday Times.
During the previous government of former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) was signed with the Indian Government to develop the Sri Lanka Unique Digital Identity (SL-UDI) project partially through an Indian grant. Under the terms of the MoU, all bidders applying for the tender to build the digital platform for the project must be of Indian origin.
The NPP government however, had observed that the original agreement would mean that the Indian company that ultimately develops the platform will also be contracted to support the system for two further years once it goes live by conducting maintenance. “We changed those clauses to ensure that the Indian vendor will hand over all access and control of the platform to a local entity, most likely a (Sri Lankan) government owned entity, for support and maintenance activities,” Deputy Minister Weeraratne said.
While an opposition MP in the previous Parliament, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake himself raised concerns over the possibility of an Indian entity potentially having access to personal data of citizens in the digital ID project through such a maintenance agreement. In August, 2023, Mr Dissanayake told the Sunday Times that there was no guarantee that an Indian company will not have any access to data under such a maintenance agreement. Now, the NPP government under his presidency has accordingly amended the clauses of the agreement due to these concerns.
Mr Dissanayake had also alleged in Parliament in August 2023 that the tender to award the contract to build the digital platform had been manipulated to suit a particular bidder. Two Indian companies that had bid for the tender were later disqualified. Deputy Minister Weeraratne told the Sunday Times on Friday that the NPP government will select a bidder to build the platform through a transparent, competitive bidding process. “We’ll select a proper vendor with a good record about the implementation of such a critical system.”
The government’s digital ID project will be rolled out in two phases. The first phase will see the issuance of a new electronic National Identity Card or “e-NIC” with locally developed software. The government is hopeful that the Department of Registration of Persons (DRP) can start issuing the e-NICs to those applying for new NICs by the end of this month or the beginning of February.
The e-NIC however, is a temporary solution, the Deputy Minister stressed. “We are going to use that for one segment of the whole ecosystem. Once the grant based solution for SL-UDI comes, certain aspects will be run on e-NIC, such as the data capturing side and the interface. The SL-UDI will be the core platform. It’ll be a complete ecosystem by combining both.”
Biometric data will be collected for the e-NIC in the form of facial, iris and fingerprint data of the applicants. The government will have to use many devices such as fingerprint and iris scanners and high resolution cameras for the data collection, Mr Weeraratne pointed out. He said the government will try to see if the cost of the equipment needed for data collection can be reimbursed from the SL-UDI grant so that the government doesn’t have to bear the full cost of the project.
The total cost of the project is estimated at Rs. 20 billion. This includes the software and hardware in terms of all the biometric scans and data centre costs and operational costs for three years once the system goes live. The Indian grant for the project is Rs. 10.4 billion, which is more than 50% of the cost of the project, according to the deputy minister.
There has been opposition to some segments of the digital ID project. The People’s Struggle Alliance (PSA) has been the most vocal. Several PSA activists including Executive Committee member Wasantha Mudalige filed a Right to Information (RTI) request with the Ministry of Public Security on Friday asking for more information on the digital ID project.
Mr Mudalige told the Sunday Times that their RTI application asked for information such as the Indian government’s involvement in the project and its role in the procurement process, how long Indian companies will be involved in the project, the conditions imposed on Sri Lanka when obtaining the Indian government grant for the project and complete details of the personal data that will be included in the digital ID.
Mr Mudalige insisted that their party did not oppose the digital ID itself but that it was concerned over the collection of biometric data and the wider implications regarding privacy and personal data protection. He alleged that the government is not being transparent on the project.
He pointed out that there have been serious mass data breaches, including India’s own Aadhaar database, the largest biometric database in the world and which Sri Lanka hopes to model its own digital ID database on. He questioned what safeguards the government had to prevent hackers from breaching the database given the value of the information contained within.
He also questioned why India was so keen to be involved in the SL-UDI project. “There is obviously an underlying motive regarding the Indian government’s move to provide the grant,” he remarked. Mr Mudalige also alleged that while the government may claim that no Indian company could access the data, there was always a possibility of them building a “backdoor entry” into the database.
Deputy Minister Weeraratne however, stressed that the system will be secure and added that the digital ID will ultimately make life easier for citizens and limit opportunities to commit fraud using citizens’ personal data.
Under the government’s programme, all the new NICs that will be issued once the digital ID project gets rolling in the next few weeks will be e-NICs. This process will continue for up to six months, after which point, it will also be possible for those with existing NICs to convert them to e-NICs. It will take at least another 16 months for the SLUDI project to come online due to it requiring sophisticated data centres and customisation to meet Sri Lanka’s needs. Biometric and biographic data collected in the interim will be migrated onto the new platform once it becomes operational.
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