Central Information Commission
Rajat Kumar Mehra vs Institute Of Chartered Accoutant Of ... on 29 May, 2019
Author: Vanaja N Sarna
Bench: Vanaja N Sarna
क य सच ु ना आयोग
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
बाबा गंगनाथ माग
Baba Gangnath Marg
मु नरका, नई द ल - 110067
Munirka, New Delhi-110067
Decision no.: CIC/ICAOI/A/2018/113433/00743
File no.: CIC/ICAOI/A/2018/113433
In the matter of:
Rajat Kumar Mehra
... Appellant
VS
Central Public Information Officer
Institute of Chartered Accountant of India
ICAI Bhawan, Indraprastha Marg,
New Delhi - 110 002
... Respondent
RTI application filed on : 10/11/2017 CPIO replied on : 12/12/2017 First appeal filed on : 28/12/2017 First Appellate Authority order : 31/01/2018 Second Appeal dated : 01/01/2018 Date of Hearing : 28/05/2019 Date of Decision : 28/05/2019 The following were present: Appellant: Present over VC
Respondent: Shri Dinesh Kumar Mishra, Assistant Secretary & CPIO along with Seema Gerotra and Shri Rajiv Seth, all present in person. Information Sought:
The appellant has sought the following information:
1. Copies of letters of the applicant placed on the table at the 552nd meeting of the Examination Committee held on 19th and 20th June, 2017 as item no. 13.1
2. List of students declared successful in ISA - AT held on 24.06.2017 with their date of birth on the same line as it is displayed on the website of Committee of Information Technology of the Institute.
Grounds for Second Appeal The CPIO did not provide the desired information. Submissions made by Appellant and Respondents during Hearing:
The appellant submitted that he is not satisfied with the reply of the CPIO and the order of the FAA particularly on point no 2 of the RTI application where the FAA has denied the information on the date of birth of the students who were declared successful in ISA - AT held on 24.06.2017, as being personal information of the third parties, exempted u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
The CPIO submitted that an appropriate reply has been provided to the appellant on 12.12.2017 and with regard to the issue of providing date of birth of the selected candidates, he submitted that this information being personal in nature is exempted u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
On this point, the appellant while contesting the submissions of the CPIO that date of birth is exempted from disclosure u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act relied on para 121 of the judgment passed by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the matter of Justice K.S.Puttaswamy (Retd) Vs Union of India, dated 26.09.2018. The relevant portion is reproduced below:
As noted above an individual in interaction with society or while interacting with his close relatives naturally gives and reveals his several information e.g. his name, age, date of birth, residential address, etc. We are of the opinion that in giving of those information there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus, we conclude that demographic information required to be given in the process of enrolment does not violate any right of privacy.
He therefore submitted that the information sought for i.e. date of birth of the successful students should be disclosed to him.2
File no.: CIC/ICAOI/A/2018/113433 Observations:
From a perusal of the relevant case records, it is noted that an incomplete reply has been provided to the appellant on point no 1 of the RTI application. On this point, the appellant has sought copies of letters of the applicant placed on the table at the 552nd meeting of the Examination Committee held on 19th and 20th June, 2017 as item no. 13. The CPIO also submitted that he is willing to provide the complete information to the appellant in the form of a copy of the agenda of the 552nd meeting and relevant minutes of the meeting.
With regard to point no 2, the main contention of the appellant is that the date of birth of the students who have been declared successful in ISA-AT held on 24.06.2017 does not qualify to be personal information while quoting the Supreme Court Judgment in the matter of Justice K.S.Puttaswamy (Retd) Vs Union of India. At this point the Commission would like to bring to the notice of the appellant that this judgement is a general perspective and not specific in relation to the RTI Act. Hence, the Commission would not like to pass any comments with regard to the Adhaar judgment as far as the issue of disclosing date of birth of a third party under the RTI Act is concerned. However, to be more clear with regard to this particular issue, the Commission draws the attention of the appellant to the observation made by Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Union Of India vs Anita Singh, WP(C) No.677of 2013. The relevant part of the judgment is reproduced below:
"The passport of Mr. Ajeet Singh would have his personal information such as the address, date of birth and the name of his parents. The information such as date of birth and residential address of the passport holder would constitute personal information within the meaning of Section 8(1)(j) of the Act, which cannot be disclosed to the respondents. Since neither the respondent sought disclosure of the said documents in special circumstances such as existence of any public interest nor the Commission recording finding that the larger public interest required disclosure of the said information to him, the said information would be exempt from disclosure under Section 8(1)(j) of the Act."3
It is also to be noted by the appellant that more often, date of birth of the candidates, who appear for competitive exams or particularly in the present case, who had appeared in Information System Audit examination, are mostly used as a password in relation to a particular generated ID belonging to a particular individual. In the present case also, the CPIO during the hearing submitted that during ISA-AT , the date of birth of the candidates, being the most authentic detail of an applicant, is used as password for the login purpose of the candidate against his particular ID generated after the successful submission of the application form by him which includes the name of the firm he is working for, address of the firm, names of the partners and other personal details which are otherwise also exempted from disclosure u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. Based on these submissions, if date of birth of any candidate is provided to any third person and on his access to the login ID, which most of the times is placed on the website of the concerned organisation, other personal details of such person would also become accessible to the person who has secured the login ID through the date of birth of any other candidate apart from himself and there is a possibility of misuse of such private details. That information can then be used to hack into third party systems either directly using the password reset forms, guessing passwords, etc, or indirectly through spear phishing attacks and also being a crucial piece of information for identity theft. Date of birth is just another piece of a Personally Identifiable Information (PII), any data that could potentially identify a specific individual. The more pieces of such PII, the easier it is to identify or impersonate a person. In a nutshell, knowing personal information about someone may gain the attacker access to a system, a bank telephone operator looking at your record, or to a nurse who is checking on some medical record over the phone, or in some cases, impersonate a business to request for payments from a supplier.
The Commission, therefore, upholds the submissions of the CPIO that date of birth of the candidates who have been declared successful in ISA - AT qualifies to be personal information exempted from disclosure u/s 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act as far as the present facts of the case are concerned.
Decision:
Based on the above observations, the CPIO is directed to provide a revised reply on point no 1 of the RTI application along with all the relevant 4 File no.: CIC/ICAOI/A/2018/113433 enclosures, free of cost to the appellant within a period of 10 days from the date of receipt of this order under intimation to the Commission.
The appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Vanaja N. Sarna (वनजा एन. सरना) Information Commissioner (सच ू ना आय! ु त) Authenticated true copy (अ भ मा णत स या पत त) A.K. Assija (ऐ.के. असीजा) Dy. Registrar (उप-पंजीयक) 011- 26182594 / दनांक / Date 5