MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Wednesday wrote to the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and RBI Governor Urjit Patel apprising them of certain key issues that will arise as the Government and RBI move to increasingly to digitize the economy as well as the banking and payments eco-system being transformed.
Chandrasekhar welcomed the government’s and RBI’s move to transform and digitize the economy.
In his letter to Jaitley, Chandrasekhar sought the minister’s attention to five key issues:
– Defining use and operation of JDY accounts
– Defining the Use of Aadhaar in the Banking and Financial system
– Planning for Issues of Transaction Fraud, Data Security and Privacy
– Growing the Internet Infrastructure and Access to Digital Payment hotspots
– Planning for anticipated surge in Digital Black Economy
Speaking on the use of Aadhaar in the Banking and Financial system, he said “The numerous fake Aadhaar entries in the Aadhaar database, including the recent Pakistani spies who had Aadhar cards issued in fake names with their biometrics shows that the Aadhar database is a very poorly verified database in terms of identifying the person whose biometrics are in the database. I am sure that the Government and RBI is aware of this point as well. The RBI must ensure Aadhaar can and must be used only along with other proof of ID for people to enter the financial system.”
Talking about the issues of transaction fraud, data security and privacy, Chandrasekhar said “There are serious gaps in the IT act and the dispute resolution institutions like the Cyber Appellate Tribunal. As we move large parts of our economy and transactions online, there will legitimate issues of Transaction Fraud, Data security, Privacy and disputes between consumers and Banks, Banks and Banks, Merchants and consumers, Merchants and Banks etc. that will explode in volume. The Data security issue in itself represents a serious challenge to our Banking system and the RBI must work with Government to plan pro-actively on issues of infrastructure, capacity building and legislative requirements to deter and prosecute the perpetrators”.
He also sought the Finance Ministers attention to start planning for anticipated surge in Digital Black Economy. “There are already reports of a surge in Domestic bitcoin trade and move of black economy to the Dark Internet. The surveillance and policing requirements are challenging and I suspect the Government and RBI are ill-equipped currently to deal with this. I am drawing your attention to the need to be ahead of the curve on this rather than behind and so the RBI must develop the capabilities on this urgently.” he said.
