The inquiry report on the disappearance of a significant amount of birth and death registration information from the BDRIS server has been submitted to the High Court by Deputy Attorney General Kazi Mainul Hasan.
The report was presented to the bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil on Sunday.
The report, signed by Birth and Death Registration Information System (BDRIS) Assistant Registrar General Samiul Islam Rahad, highlights that only inputted data is automatically stored on the server.
However, due to the failure of registrar offices to upload past handwritten birth registration records, online birth registration information for many citizens is missing.
The report clarifies that there has been no loss of information from the server or compromise of data confidentiality. There was no theft, deliberate destruction, or intentional deletion of data. The missing registration information was never uploaded online despite reminders and efforts.
The lack of capacity in the previous Registrar General's office hindered the effective digitization of manual birth registration records, the report said.
The report further explains that in February 2015, the BDRIS server and BRIS software experienced a system failure due to high user demand, rendering the server non-functional for three months.
External assistance was sought from the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and their technical team appointed by Unicef to restore the software and database.
The shortage of manpower to address the issue negatively impacted the online registration process, leading to missing data in the database.
However, as the current report is incomplete, the court has directed the submission of a comprehensive report by August 10.
On May 29, the High Court instructed the government to investigate the disappearance of a significant amount of birth and death registration information.
The court also issued a rule questioning the government's inaction in preventing difficulties faced by the public in obtaining birth and death certificates and the non-investigation of the missing information from the servers.
Additionally, the court raised the question of directing the creation of a central database as per Rule-19 of the Birth and Death Registration Act-2019.
