Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Thousands of members have expressed serious concerns over Islamabad Club’s plan to ‘illegally’ share their data with a third party.

According to the documentary evidence present with Daily Times, the club administration has planned to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) without permission of the enlisted members. The members have termed the move illegal as well as unethical and against an individual’s right to privacy.

The PITB is an autonomous organisation working under the administrative control of the Punjab government and provides IT services and infrastructure to the government and local as well as international business concerns.

The Islamabad Club has around 7,000 active members and 400 applications are on the waiting list. The club charges Rs 1.5 million from private individuals and Rs 300,000 from government officers as membership fee.

The club has complete profile of each member, including their CNICs, bank account details, annual income details, profession, house addresses, office addresses and nature of job and even details of family members.

An official at the club told Daily Times on the condition of anonymity that the record also includes data of members that belong to civilian and military bureaucracy, diplomatic community and corporate business. He said that the club is the custodian of the personal information of the members and the move to share their data with another organisation would be ‘dishonesty’ with the club members who are almost the sole source of income for the organisation.

When the club management sought opinion from its legal advisor, he also termed the plan a violation of rights of an individual.

“Data provided by members of the club to the management is private information sharing of which with an outside agency constitutes violation of right to privacy enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution which takes precedence over any domestic law. A special law (Data Protection Act, 2005) in this behalf was moved in the parliament in 2005 which is pending approval,” legal advisor Afzal Siddiqi told the administration in his opinion.

“The crux of the matter is that any data provided by any class of persons to any organization is peculiar to that situation and cannot be shared with any outside agency except with the approval of the provider (member), and that too after informing the member that this is being done and they are required to give their consent,” Siddiqi informed the club administration.

“There is no law in the country which obligates Islamabad Club to reveal this private information and certainly the members are oblivious to this MOU, its purport, scope and necessity,” he said in his legal opinion.

Siddiqi also quoted example of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) which was not allowed to obtain information from banks about their customers and the government had to have a legislative measure approved from the parliament and the State Bank of Pakistan before it got the powers to obtain data of account holders. Siddiqi was reportedly terminated from the club over allegedly giving legal opinion contrary to the administration’s wishes.

Some employees of the club reportedly wrote an application to Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Secretary Nargis Ghallo for her intervention in the matter. Subsequently, the secretary wrote a formal letter to the club administration (copy of which is available with Daily Times) and sought club administration’s comments till December 6, 2017. Interestingly, when contacted by Daily Times for comments, Secretary Nargis Ghallo expressed her ignorance about the matter.

Under the Islamabad Club Ordinance, 1978, President of Pakistan is patron-in-chief of the club while Secretary CADD is ex-officio member of its managing committee.

After the passage of 18th amendment, the CADD can only issue notifications to the club administration as per instructions from the president. Islamabad Club Administrator Shahid Khan refused to give version, saying that PITB should be consulted in this regard.

Published in Daily Times, December 18th 2017.