Information leak: Chinks in the government’s armour

The latest instance of leakage of sensitive papers from the ministry of petroleum in New Delhi should not come as a surprise to many mandarins. We have had many such episodes in the past where major corporate houses were directly or indirectly involved and got away with their misdemeanours. So, let us not go gaga over the latest arrests. In any case, the Centre has to be complimented for its proactive role in unearthing the latest scandal. The Delhi Police seem to have done a good job.

There are several issues that need to be clarified here. What was the exact content of the papers that were compromised? Sometimes the police and the media make a mistake. Were the documents in question classified: confidential, secret or top secret? If there was no such classification, the accused persons can get away unscathed. I presume there was one such classification and the subjects handled were sensitive and meant to be kept within the confines of government until they were declassified. 

Coming as it does a week before the Union Budget, our curiosity is aroused. I am sure the finance ministry had taken care to protect all that it was considering for use in formulating the budget. 

As in the case of public servant corruption, one can never conceive of a situation where we can take the stand that government information system is so secure that nobody can breach it. We know that the best of tools cannot prevent hacking of even the strongest of computers. Prominent technology firms in the business of cyber security themselves admit that the systems built by them are only 99.99% secure. There is always the unsecured 0.01 space that a ruthless hacker will exploit with formidable success. This applies to government information security practices as well.

However, the higher echelons of government can do a lot more to protect their sensitive documents. Compulsory and imaginative security classification of important papers containing policy or other matters will greatly help. Sometimes, there is ludicrous and excessive classification of even routine papers. This is wasteful and it distracts attention. Circulation of important papers will have to be on the basis of numbering of each copy and the recording of the name of the recipient and the number borne by the copy given to him. This enhances the accountability of each recipient and facilitates a post-mortem after reports of a breach. All this drill exists on paper in government departments, but is observed mainly in the breach. 

This is an area where many top civil servants are lax. They are either overworked or not trained. It is a tragedy that in some past instances officers as high as Joint Secretaries had been caught for complicity. Nothing can be more painful. There has to be a continuous drill to instill security consciousness into all levels of the hierarchy. Finally the corridors of many ministries are crowded with undesirable contact men, many of whose names are known to top civil servants. We cannot prevent this unless physical security of offices is watertight. But we can certainly build enough deterrence into disciplinary action even against those who have been negligent but may not be dishonest. 

Ultimately it is the ethics of the civil service that is in question here. It is generally agreed that we cannot and should not pry into the lives of civil servants. We can however preach good conduct and the benefits thereof. Thereafter we can only leave it to the good sense of each public official. 

The writer is a former CBI director