The High Court has issued a ruling on the cancellation of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) directive to the mobile companies regarding the collection of National Identity Card information. In the rule, it has been asked why instructions should not be given to preserve the personal information of the people which is stored in the Election Commission or the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Cabinet Secretary, Chief Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, Home Secretary, Information and Communication Technology Secretary, Post and Telecommunication Secretary, BTRC Chairman and others concerned have been asked to respond to the rule within four weeks.
After the preliminary hearing of a public interest writ, on Wednesday, March 20, The High Court bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Md. Atabullah issued the ruling. In fact, the High Court issued a ruling seeking to know why the instructions given to the mobile companies by BTRC to collect information from the National Identity Card database of the Election Commission or the Ministry of Home Affairs and create a separate database should not be declared null and void.
Senior advocate Monzil Morsed appeared for the writ in the court. Deputy Attorney General Tushar Kanti Roy appeared for the state.
A writ was filed on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh regarding the report published in the media.
Regarding the hearing of the writ, Manzil Morsed said, in the report published on February 6, it is said that the BTRC has instructed the mobile companies to collect and store the personal information of their customers and create a database.
It is mentioned that the mobile companies will collect and store all other information including name, address of their customers. Earlier, mobile companies used to collect their customers’ information from the Election Commission’s national identity card database.
If this directive is implemented, the mobile companies will have to verify the customer information through the database with Digicom Technologies. Because of this database Digicom Technologies has to pay 10 taka per customer. Currently, mobile companies pay five taka to the Election Commission for the same.
In the hearing, Manzil Morsed said, if the mobile companies start following the instructions of BTRC, then the personal information of common people will go to private organizations, which will pose a threat to national security. Besides, people will suffer financially, which is against the constitution and law.