Asia Bizz: The Indian governmental agency which recently opened a service for unrestricted access to ownership details of any car has come to an abrupt end. The earlier reports said that the new service disclosed the owner’s name in addition to confidential loan details.
The service was known as the ‘Car Ownership Info Just an SMS Away’ which was developed by the National Informatics Centre on behalf of the transport ministry. But now the ministry has blocked the service and plans to re-introduce the service after ensuring restricted access to information of ownership of the vehicles.
Mahesh Chandra, the deputy director General of NIC admitted that the information of the car ownership as well as the details about the loan on the vehicles was available through SMS. Chandra added that the service was being tested on a pilot basis and the leaking of the numbers may lead to disclosure of service.
One had to just SMS ‘VAHAN’ space registration number of the vehicle to the number 9212357123 and instantly get the details through SMS. Chandra added that the service has been shut down for now and are in the process of establishing the database for the enforcement agencies who will be allowed access to the service.
