The
Asian Age: New Delhi: Monday, 04 January 2016.
Email IDs of
all government officials cannot be provided under the Right to Information Act
as it could cause a serious security threat, the CIC has ruled.
The full
bench of the Commission, however, directed the NIC to quickly complete a web
directory carrying email IDs of officials dealing with public issues in the
larger public interest. “Providing the list of all email IDs in a CD format
could pose a security threat as well as the risk of disruption of essential
public services by making the information susceptible to misuse/abuse,” the
bench comprising information commissioners Basant Seth, Yashovardhan Azad and
Sridhar Acharyulu said. It also said the government has to make sure that the
emails and websites of its ministries and departments do not become targets for
anti-social elements “within and beyond the country”.
The bench
said that on a “practical and possible logical front,” the apprehension of the
NIC, while withholding the email IDs of all the officials, cannot be completely
overlooked because “availability and access to such wide array of information
leaves scope for misuse and abuse of the same at the hands of any person”.
“Apart from
random mischief mongers or technical geeks or harmless but curious persons who
may disrupt the entire cyber network by irresponsible handling of the
information viz. the list of email IDs; the country actually runs a far greater
risk of exposing itself to inimical, hostile nations, waiting to harm national
security and interest by triggering a cyber attack or even worse, hacking into
the systems and obtaining valuable confidential information of national
importance,” the order said.
Rejecting the
plea of Maniram Sharma, the bench said there is a high possibility of misuse of
information if the email addresses of public authorities are released in a
consolidated CD form.
“The
respondents have repeatedly voiced their apprehension that such disclosure of
information could make the government Internet network vulnerable to cyber
attacks in the form of humongous amount of unwanted interest communications
sent from fake IP addresses, choking the government network and blocking access
of the NIC servers,” it said.
The
Commission lauded the efforts of the government for its project to centralise
all official communications by creating a hub on single platform. “Such a
development, in larger public interest augurs well for the cause of
transparency and also caters to the demand of the appellant. “Believing that
directory is being developed under the vigilant and watchful government set up,
we require the aspects of national security and larger public interest and
public reach shall be adequately addressed,” it said.
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