Digilocker

WHY IN NEWS?

The Delhi High Court sought response of the Centre on a plea challenging the IT rules pertaining to operation of digilocker, government's online document storage facility app, on the ground that it does not have a nomination facility.

ABOUT THE PLEA CHALLENGING IT RULES

• A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and sought its stand on the petition which contends that not allowing a user to nominate a successor or heir to operate the facility on her/his death was "arbitrary" and "unconstitutional".
• The plea by Kusum Arora, who claims to be a poet and author of several short stories, has sought striking down of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker facilities) Rules 2016 "to the extent it does not provide for a nomination facility".
• As an alternate relief, the petition has sought that the term 'subscriber' in the rules be read down to include the nominee or heir of the original user of the facility.

ABOUT DIGILOCKER

• DigiLocker is an online service provided by Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India under its Digital India initiative.
• DigiLocker provides an account in cloud to every Indian citizen to access authentic documents/certificates such as driving license, vehicle registration, and academic mark list in digital format from the original issuers of these certificates.
• It also provides 1GB storage space to each account to upload scanned copies of legacy documents.
• Users need to possess an Aadhar card to use DigiLocker.
• There is also an associated facility for e-signing documents. The service is intended to minimise the use of physical documents, reduce administrative expenses, provide authenticity of the e-documents, provide secure access to government-issued documents and to make it easy for the residents to receive services.
• Digital Locker is not mere a technical platform. Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India also notified Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries Providing Digital Locker Facilities) Rules, 2016 for Digital Locker.
• Amendments made to these rules in February 2017 state that the issued documents provided and shared through Digital Locker are at par with the corresponding physical certificates.

Prelims Question

Q. Consider the following statements regarding Digilocker :
1.Users need to possess an Aadhar card to use DigiLocker.
2.The issued documents provided and shared through Digital Locker are not at par with the corresponding physical certificates presently.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
a)1 only
b)2 only
c)Both 1 and 2
d)Neither 1 nor 2

Answer to the Prelims Question