No central storage of passenger's Personally Identifiable Information through Digi Yatra

New Delhi [India], February 5 (ANI): The personal information of a passenger is stored in the mobile wallet of the traveller, the Civil Aviation Ministry informed Rajya Sabha on Monday in response to a question on data privacy concerns in Digi Yatra.
Minister of State for Civil Aviation General VK Singh (Retd) in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha informed that the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE) is built on the fundamental tenets of privacy by design and default, and there is no central storage of passenger's Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data.
"The Digi Yatra processes are subjected to audits and certification by CERT-In empanelled agencies to ensure adherence to data privacy and security standards," he replied.
Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem is managed by Digi Yatra Foundation, a Not-For-Profit company made under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013, and hence does not come under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, he said.
Digi Yatra Guidelines have been issued by DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) through the Aeronautical Information Circular (AIC) No. 09/2022 dated April 18, 2022. These Digi Yatra guidelines provide for a decentralised mobile wallet-based identity management platform, he informed.
"The personal information of the passenger is stored in the mobile wallet of the traveller. The same are shared with the departure airport in an encrypted format, and data is purged from the system after 24 hours of departure of the flight. This addresses the data protection issues in the implementation of Digi Yatra," he replied.
Further, the Digi Yatra processes are subjected to audits and certification by CERT-In empanelled agencies to ensure adherence to data privacy and security standards, he said. (ANI)