Opinion | What we get wrong about ‘data’
Summary
Juthe Tamang has been unable to access flood housing assistance after Sanima Bank rejected his citizenship certificate photo, exposing the limits of Nepal’s record-keeping system. The column argues that data is a civic issue, not just a technical one, and calls for laws that let people correct records about themselves.
Key Points
- Juthe Tamang in Bidur, Nuwakot, was denied a bank account for flood housing assistance because his decades-old citizenship photo no longer matches his face.
- The column argues that data is not just digital information but includes citizenship records, land files, hospital records, and other state-held documents that shape daily life.
- It criticizes Nepal’s current system for making public data expensive, hard to access, and difficult for citizens to correct.
- The piece says Nepal needs a law on how data is owned, exchanged, and protected, with the right for people to update records about themselves.
