Two key RTI portals under ‘emergency maintenance’
- The Union government’s RTI Online portal, for filing Right to Information applications to central government bodies, has been undergoing ‘emergency maintenance
- It is preventing applicants from retrieving their filed applications conveniently.
Key Highlights
- Meanwhile, it emerged that the Election Commission of India (ECI), which maintains its own RTI portal, patched its systems to fix an issue exposing RTI applicants’ personal data
- A security vulnerability that was disclosed by security researcher Karan Saini to the news portal TechCrunch.
- The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in) coordinated with the ECI to resolve the vulnerability,
- The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, runs the RTI Online portal.
- Public authorities continue to be able to access the government side of the portal and process applications
- The RTI portals maintained by different governments have had a spotty record in the last few years.
Prelims Takeaway
- RTI
- CERT-in