E-Paper
IRCTC invites bids to use booking data
The project, unveiled as a tender, called for consultants to study the data with an aim to generate a revenue of ₹1,000 crore.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) invited bids for a project to explore how train reservation data, including possible personal details of passengers, can be monetised, triggering concerns of privacy. Officials in the Indian Railways are now considering dropping the plan, people aware of the matter said.
The plan, unveiled as a tender, called for consultants to study the data with an aim to generate a revenue of ₹1,000 crore.
Railways officials told HT that this may now be pulled despite the request for proposal (RFP) being issued. “Railways may not go ahead with the process due to issues related to data protection laws,” said an official, requesting anonymity.
The tender asked the consultant to study the data of passenger, freight and parcel business of Indian Railways such as passenger reservation system (PRS), new generation e-ticketing, the National Train Enquiry Services, the Freight Operations Information System (FOIS), track and parcel management system, customer relationship management (e-CRM) and vendor-related data from applications of Indian Railways.
According to the tender document, the consultant will “study the customer data captured by Indian Railways which includes basic data of individual passenger/customers of freight, parcel and other public facing application like: name, age, mobile number, gender, address, e-mail address, number of passengers, class of journey, payment mode, login/password, etc”.
It also stated that the consultant will have to study digital data systems that generate behavioural data like flow of passengers, class of journey, frequency of journey, travel time, booking time, age group and gender, payment mode, number of destinations and booking modes.
Tasks listed for the appointed consultant include segregation of monetisable data sets, identification of market potential internationally, and preparation of a road-map for how the data can be monetised.
The consultants, the document added, will need to study various laws, including India’s IT Act and Europe’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) as well as the now-abandoned Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018, and accordingly propose business models.
“The IRCTC, was aiming for additional revenue generation through monetising its digital assets by hiring a consultant. However, it is unlikely to go ahead with it,” the official quoted above said, adding that a similar EOI was initiated by IRCTC in 2019.
Digital rights advocacy groups criticised the plan, especially the sweeping scope in the assessment the consultant was meant to carry out and the data that would be opened up.
“IRCTC, a government-controlled monopoly, must not prioritise perverse commercial interests over the rights and interests of citizens. And given the recent withdrawal of the Data Protection Bill, 2021, such monetisation becomes even more concerning,” a statement from non-profit Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) read.
