There is no proposal for a separate law to authenticate social media accounts by linking one’s government identity card with such accounts, as per a response on March 30 filed by the Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The written response was submitted by Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw to a query raised by Congress MP Abdul Khaleque. The Union government said that it was aware of the risks and dangers posed by the growing phenomenon of fake news on various social media platforms which is why it has notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules 2021) to make social media platforms accountable to their users. The response highlighted that significant social media intermediaries (SSMI) have been directed to allow users to voluntarily verify their accounts by using any “appropriate mechanism” which can include an active mobile number under IT Rules 2021. SSMIs must provide users with a “demonstrable and visible mark of verification” post the procedure. The idea of authenticating social media accounts using government IDs was conceived as a measure to address the problem of fake news which has grown rapidly in the last two years. However, such a proposal is bound to spark privacy concerns as it may involve providing private organisations with personal (even biometric) data, without any data protection legislation in place. The response indicates that the government is not going to ratify such a proposal anytime soon. Past calls to link social…
