Should you be able to download anybody’s birth certificate from civic body website?

While Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) authorities maintained that birth certificates are public records, experts cautioned that making records available for mass download could lead to issues down the line.

Srinivas Kodali, an independent researcher specialising in cybersecurity and privacy, said: “Usually, civil registration systems in Western countries collect birth records and give a certificate to people. Birth certificates are considered public records in most societies.”

But he added a caveat: “More than the certificate, it is the weaponisation of personal information that happens in Indian society that is the problem. Marriage records under the Special Marriage Act are public and social groups in India social groups come out and oppose inter-caste marriages, inter-religious marriages on the basis of these public records.”

Kodali said certificates being available online for mass download reflects a larger problem. “It’s about how websites are designed in India. The government does not care about data protection.”

The Pune civic body’s web page for downloading birth certificates has only two mandatory fields: birth date and gender. The website login requires no ID proof.

Once a visitor enters these, a list of persons born on that date appears. All of these birth certificates can then be downloaded by anyone. The birth certificate bears a digital signature and the PMC’s stamp. 

Meanwhile, a person collecting a copy of a birth certificate physically from a PMC centre is required to submit an ID proof, said an official from the civic body’s Birth-Death Department. 

“Birth certificate is not a private document. If anybody asks for anybody’s birth certificate, we are supposed to give it. However, as policy at the PMC offices, we ask for an ID proof and relationship with the certificate holder,” said Manisha Naik, Registrar and Health Officer at the department.

Vivek Velankar, a Pune-based RTI activist said: “These certificates should not be available this easily. PMC should be providing these certificates after confirming the identity of the person, or at least the mother’s or father’s name should be mandatorily entered on the website.”

The websites of many municipalities in the country have the option of downloading birth certificates, but the required fields differ. The Chennai Municipal Corporation website, like the PMC, allows one to access and download birth certificates by simply entering the date of birth.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation website, however, requires the visitor to enter the name of the father and mother in addition to the date of birth. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi website requires the mother’s name.

In Maharashtra, the Navi Mumbai and the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation websites redirect visitors to the national Civil Registration System site.  The Nashik Municipal Corporation site, meanwhile, requires the Aadhaar cards of the applicant as well as their mother and father, a certificate number and a certificate date. The Solapur and Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation portals require an application number.

PMC’s Naik said the civic body’s website was designed by the IT Department. “But the suggestion to make mother’s or father’s name compulsory is a good one and can be considered.”