 "Anurag Jain, Secretary at Ministry of Road Transport and Highways")
Anurag Jain, Secretary at Ministry of Road Transport and Highways | Credit: X/@MORTHIndia
Amid concerns over data privacy in the proposed GPS-based toll collection system, also known as the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) toll collection, highways secretary Anurag Jain has clarified that data collection will only be limited to national highways.
The implementation of this toll collection system, which will eventually eradicate toll booths, necessitates the fitting of an on-board unit (OBU) in every vehicle, which can collect data.
“On data privacy, we are absolutely clear. Your signal will be captured the moment you enter the national highway, and the moment you exit, your signal will stop being captured,” Jain told Business Standard during a media interaction on Thursday.
On concerns whether the stakeholders involved in the transaction, such as OBU manufacturers, banks, and insurers, could access real-time location data at all times, and not just on national highways, Jain said, “They’ll have a contractual obligation with us (not to track at all times).”
“As it is, the data about the whereabouts of vehicles on national highways is collected by us even today, since vehicles are passing through toll gates. Just that it is in an anonymised and aggregated form,” the secretary told Business Standard.
In commercial vehicles, he added that even fleet owners track their vehicles through the unified logistics interface platform (ULIP).
Any data sharing in GPS-based systems would have to honour data protection regulations.
“Whenever an IT system is built, a grievance redressal mechanism is built in tandem with it. We have built systems like UPI, ONDC with efficiency,” Jain said on concerns of technological issues or vulnerabilities causing inconvenience to vehicle owners.
Ever since Union highways minister Nitin Gadkari first announced the plans for location-based toll collection across the country, experts have raised concerns about data privacy and the scope for misuse.
“GPS location data of cars or other vehicles is, of course, not purely non-personal data. It cannot be divorced from the person driving that vehicle or in that vehicle because it is geolocation data of the person also, and the car is also able to amass a lot of other personal information too. You sometimes sync your contact with the inbuilt system inside the car. So there are many ways in which a car manufacturer can amass data from you. It’s not purely non-personal data, and there is an implication for individuals,” Disha Verma, working for the Internet Freedom Foundation, had told this paper in June.
The ministry has also constituted an expert committee to deal with issues of data privacy which may arise.
In a discussion paper on Telematics Insurance, the non-life department of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) had foreseen issues of privacy.
“When an insured switches from one company to another, there could be issues relating to portability of data—the newer company may refuse to take cognisance of previous data. There could also be issues surrounding privacy of data and what data can be shared and what cannot. Implementing telematics would involve cost. The cost would need to be integrated into the pricing structure,” the Irdai had said.
First Published: Sep 13 2024 | 6:58 PM IST
