The DigiYatra Dilemma: Privacy, Consent, FOSS and the way forward!

DigiYatra promises seamless, paperless air travel for millions of Indians. Yet, its rollout has been plagued by reports of coerced consent, privacy concerns, and a fundamental trust deficit. Is this the future of India's Digital Public Infrastructure?

This session presents a critical case study of DigiYatra, examining the deep chasm between its "privacy-by-design" claims, the consent conundrum and the reality on the ground. We will analyze the system's architecture, its controversial "opt-in" process, and the broader geopolitical context of state-led digital identity projects.

The core of this talk will be a counter-proposal: how could a FOSS-based DigiYatra have been designed differently? We will explore how open standards, auditable code, and community governance could have built a system where consent is real, privacy is verifiable, and public trust is earned, not demanded.

I will go through topic considering following flow:

• Introduction: The Promise and the Peril: The official promise of DigiYatra: a "seamless, contact-less, hassle-free and paperless" travel experience to the conflicting lived reality for many passengers

• Deconstructing "Consent"

• Deconstructing "Privacy"

• The FOSS Alternative: A Verifiable Architecture

• Lessons learned from the DigiYatra dilemma are not isolated but are critically important for the design of all future Digital Public Infrastructure projects in India.

• India to build digital public goods that are truly accountable to the public they claim to serve, FOSS is not an option but a necessity.

The session would help to de-construct the narrative around consent and privacy promised by many systems like digi-yatra and truly understand the core of the system.
It will prompt one to think beyond this and think along the lines of technology policy for the concerned topic.