RailYatri App Penalised for Data Leak App Restored After taking Security Measures

The central government had imposed a fine on the custodian firm of RailYatri app for data leak. In the information given to Parliament, it has been said that the app was restored after taking necessary security measures. This app is used to book railway tickets.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha told That after the information given by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team CERT-In in December last year, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) had taken action against the RailYatri app. He said, “According to the information given by IRCTC, after receiving information from CERT-In in December last year about the leakage of data on the RailYatri app, the ticket booking facility on this app was stopped and its custodian firm was arrested. “A fine was imposed. The app was reinstated after taking necessary security measures.”

Chandrashekhar said that in the last three years, the cases of data leak related to government organizations are 10, 5 and 7 respectively. “As per information tracked by CERT-In, there have been a total of 47 cases of data leaks and 142 cases of data breaches in the last five calendar years,” he said. Last year, CERT-In had issued instructions under the law to report such cases to CERT-In within six hours of detection.

IRCTC may soon launch the feature of voice-based e-ticketing. With this, tickets can be booked by speaking. It is trialling its Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform ‘Ask DISHA’. With this, customers will be able to book tickets by giving voice commands. Along with this, IRCTC has also planned to increase the per day online ticketing capacity. Ask DISHA has been developed in collaboration with Bengaluru-based startup CoRover. Through this platform, customers can book tickets and avail other assistance with an OTP verification log-in. In this, users do not need IRCTC log-in and password. Through chatbot Ask Disha 2.0, passengers will be able to book tickets using text or voice commands. On this, the status of ticket cancellation and refund of canceled tickets will also be known.