'Threat' to data security

An unseemly row broke out between the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) over the alleged 'leak' of electoral rolls data from the latter. To add fuel to the fire, PTI accused the NADRA Chairman, Usman Yusuf Mobeen, of being a PML-N appointee who has 'leaked' voter information to the former ruling party to give it advantage in the general elections. However, the picture is cloudy because of contradictory reports, not the least of which reveals divisions within the ECP itself over the issue. The perceived threat to the security of electoral rolls stems from the sharing of age- and religion-wise voters' statistics. Reports speak of the ECP having written a letter on May 29, 2018 to NADRA expressing its great concern regarding media reports that insiders have provided the information in question to outsiders even before the ECP, a clear breach, the ECP argues, of the confidentiality clauses of the contract between the ECP and NADRA of June 2011. The ECP as a result fears for the credibility of both NADRA and the ECP as custodians of the electoral rolls. The ECP did clarify however that the letter had nothing to do with the PTI allegation since neither the ECP had received any communication from the PTI in this regard nor did it therefore act on that basis. To make confusion worse confounded while waiting for NADRA's response to the ECP letter, it seems there is little clarity about the law and rules surrounding the subject. For one, the ECP had provided information about voters' age- and religion-wise statistics on its website before the 2013 elections without any complaint from any quarter and shared an update with media itself just two months ago. But by now it seems the pitch has been queered by the Elections Act 2017, whose Section 79(3) is interpreted by some observers as restricting access to any such data to formal applicants who have to pay a prescribed fee for the information, while others say this is only required for court cases, not otherwise. NADRA too is obliged under the Freedom of Information Act to share with any individual CNIC holders' data showing gender, age and religion as well as electoral rolls. Meanwhile, a NADRA spokesman has denied it had leaked any electoral rolls data to any political party and rejected the allegation of rigging against it as baseless. He pointed out that NADRA had a limited role in the elections of only providing technical assistance to the ECP.
Whatever the truth of the matter, which needs the ECP and NADRA to put their heads together and clarify the situation, the brouhaha created by the controversy reflects the heightened tensions and atmosphere of suspicion, not just amongst the rival political parties, but even against state institutions being accused of partisan political bias, illegal help to one or another political party, etc. At the back of everyone's mind is probably the ongoing and not yet settled controversy about Russian hacking being used to influence the US presidential election in 2017. In our case, hacking is not the issue, rather sharing information about voters and their profile is. First and foremost, it needs to be clarified what, if anything, can be publicly shared regarding voters' profile statistics and in what manner. Second, some light needs to be shed on what, if anything, any interested party can hope to gain from such information. The matter should be settled without paranoia or hysteria, and certainly free of any obvious or not so obvious political bias. Such controversies do not augur well for the July 25, 2018 elections.