Kathmandu: The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers has instructed all three tiers of government not to ‘scan’ official documents of government affairs using mobile apps. According to a circular issued by the information technology wing of the office, this step has been taken primarily to ensure digital security and data privacy. When using various external mobile scanning apps available in the market (eg: CamScanner) the risk of the scanned content reaching and being stored on foreign servers remains high. Thus, the release of state policy decisions, confidential comments and sensitive documents through digital means is a big challenge for national security.
The circular makes it clear that it is the responsibility of every office and employee to ensure the confidentiality and secure archiving of official documents used in government work. Currently, the increasing trend in government offices of scanning documents from mobile cameras or taking pictures for government correspondence, decisions and records has increased the risk of sensitive information falling into the hands of unauthorized persons.
According to Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s Press and Research Expert Deepa Dahal, scanning government documents through mobile apps completely compromises national security and privacy. Most of the mobile scanning apps have direct access to user data and there is no guarantee of how that data is stored on the server. Such digital leakage of sensitive government documents is a serious breach of data privacy. Therefore, this directive should be understood not only as a technical precaution but also as a mandatory step for national security.
