Congress: Privacy, data mining fears over Punjab ‘Drug Census’

Chandigarh: The Punjab Congress has denounced the Aam Aadmi Party govt's proposed "Drug and Socio-Economic Census", warning that the initiative will stigmatise the state and serve as a taxpayer-funded data-mining exercise.State Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring questioned the legitimacy of this census on Sunday, arguing that families were unlikely to disclose drug use to govt enumerators. "Which family will reveal that a member is hooked to drugs?" Warring said in a statement. "It is a private and confidential matter. If the purpose is truly to collect data on addiction, it will fail."He alleged the survey was a "pre-election" manoeuvre designed to gather voter data at public's expense and that the govt might use the results to produce "self-congratulatory figures" to falsely claim its anti-drug campaigns as succeeding.Warring notes that the health department already maintains comprehensive data through de-addiction centres, which require Aadhaar cards for regulated treatment. "The govt already has the figures," he said, adding that a public census would only serve to further damage the state's reputation.EndsMSID:: 130735285 413 |