India's poor risk loss of privacy, land in drive to digitise records
A push to digitise land records in India to establish ownership and minimise conflicts has raised concerns over privacy for poorer communities and could make them more vulnerable to evictions, legal and technology experts said on Monday. India's national land record modernisation programme seeks to re-survey lands, verify and upgrade records, and put the information online by 2021. Authorities have said this will enable them to monitor land sales more easily, increase tax revenue and reduce corruption. But with some states not having surveyed their lands in more than a century, digitising of existing records could be "counterproductive", said Namita Wahi, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, a think tank in New Delhi. In addition, there are data privacy issues with making land records easily accessible, she told the media at the sidelines of a land conference.
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