CHENNAI: Your travel and identity details may no longer remain just with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the rail ticket booking portal. The Railway Board has told IRCTC to grant access to its data to other railway establishments, including RITES, a public limited company which has private and foreign companies as its clients.
An order issued by the board on September 28, accessed by Express, said access to the data is necessary for the development of various IT applications and mobile apps “to enhance passenger experience”. Since the apps are being developed by various wings of the railways, the order said access to data must be granted to “other Railway Establishments like RITES and Zonal Railways”.
IRCTC has one of the largest passenger databases in the world with three crore registered users. It contains passenger information such as mobile number, Aadhaar number and frequently travelled routes. Besides, identity proofs of crores of passengers are also stored on the portal. The order did not explain which of these details could be accessed by other entities or restrictions placed on use of the data. A source privy to the development said it is yet to be made clear how and how much of the data IRCTC will share. IRCTC’s privacy policy says it will not share individually identifiable information without first receiving passenger permission.