New Delhi:

The Centre today refuted a report that said passengers’ data from the Digi Yatra application was being used to crack down on tax evaders. “The recent media report concerning Digi Yatra is based on unfounded and inaccurate claims,” the Ministry of Civil Aviation posted on X.

“There is no sharing of Digi Yatra passengers’ data with Indian tax authorities,” it added.

The government’s denial comes after a newspaper report, citing sources, claimed the tax department had access to the Digi Yatra app data which was being reconciled with tax filings to check for discrepancies in the declared income. It added the Income Tax department would start issuing notices to tax evaders in 2025.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation informed that the app “follows the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) model, where Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and travel credentials are stored exclusively on the user’s device, not on any central repository”.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation hereby clarifies that the recent media report concerning Digi Yatra is based on unfounded and inaccurate claims.

There is no sharing of Digi Yatra passengers data with Indian tax authorities. The Digi Yatra app follows the Self-Sovereign Identity…

— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 30, 2024

“If a user uninstalls the Digi Yatra app, the data is deleted entirely,” it added.

Further clarifying, the ministry said, “Airport systems automatically purge passenger data within 24 hours of the flight’s departure. It is also important to note that Digi Yatra is designed solely for domestic passengers and does not apply to international travellers.”

Earlier, the Income Tax department also denied the report, saying it was not looking at Digi Yatra data to go after evaders.

It is seen that news articles have appeared stating that Digiyatra data will be used to crack down on tax evaders.
In this connection it is clarified that as on date there is no such move by the @IncomeTaxIndia department.@nsitharamanoffc@officeofPCM@FinMinIndia@PIB_India

— Income Tax India (@IncomeTaxIndia) December 30, 2024

The official X handle of Digi Yatra thanked the Income Tax department for “addressing the false claims”.

Digi Yatra, based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), provides for contactless, seamless movement of passengers at various checkpoints at airports.

The data shared by a passenger for Digi Yatra is stored in an encrypted format. To avail the service, passengers need to register their details on the Digi Yatra app using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture. In the next step, the boarding pass has to be scanned and the credentials are shared with the airport.

Union Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu speaks in the Lok Sabha during the Monsoon Session of Parliament on July 31, 2024.
| Photo Credit: ANI

In what is likely to bring relief to aspiring pilots and other aviation personnel, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has proposed to bring the exam conducted on the use of radio communication equipment in an aircraft under the ambit of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) under the new Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak Bill, 2024 tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

The Bill will replace the Aircraft Act of 1934.

The Bill was tabled by the Minister for Civil Aviation Rammohan Naidu amidst a protest from Kerala MP N.K. Premachandran, who questioned why the name of the statute was in Hindi alone. The Constitution mandated that Bills brought to Parliament should be in English, Mr. Premachandran said. “For people from South India, it is very difficult to even pronounce bharatiya vayuyan vidheyak. What is the logical reason behind this? I am questioning the legislative competence of the Bill,” the MP said.

The Statement of Objects and Reasons stats that the Bill was being introduced because the 90-year-old Aircraft Act, 1934 has been amended several times and “a need is felt to address the ambiguities and confusion experienced by the stakeholders, to remove redundancies, to enable ease of doing business and to provide for manufacture and maintenance in the aviation sector”.

The proposed legislation will bring the Radio Telephone Operator Restricted (RTR) Certificate and Licence testing process from the Department of Telecom (DoT) to the DGCA, and ease the process for pilots as they can secure all their certificates from one authority, a senior official of the Ministry of Civil Aviation said. The exam is also conducted for aircraft maintenance engineers and flight despatchers.

It’s an open secret in the aviation industry that the RTR exam is the toughest to crack due to allegedly widespread corruption. Many pilots recount paying up to ₹2.5 lakh as bribes to appear for the exam, with touts indicating a dress code for the day of the exam so that candidates could be ‘identified’ at the exam centre. Others narrate how they preferred getting the same licence, which is also recognised in India, from a Commonwealth country, including Australia or Canada, because the probability of clearing the test in due course in India was so remote.

Aspiring pilots said that if the proposal came through, they would be able to appear for the RTR exam in any of the DGCA’s 14 exam centres instead of only five centres in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, where the DoT was conducting it.