KATHMANDU: Government has approved the Read Only Access Work Procedure Guidelines to the citizenship database to certain government service provider agencies.

The meeting of the Council of Ministers on September 25 took a decision to this effect.

Those government agencies -- which record information about citizens, passports, travels, information on land and land management, banking and financial transactions -- can have 'read only access' to information stored at the central repository, which is Central Database Service of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Minister for Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa had approved the Guideline prepared by MoHA in line with the Good Governance (Management and Operation) Act-2064.

The service providers can verify the information in the citizenship of service-seekers by looking at the Central Database Server if services are to be provided on basis of citizenship card.

According to the Guideline, the 'Read Only Access' to service providers will be given at the recommendation of concerned head of the agency.

The Ministry of Home Affairs would regularly monitor implementation of the work procedure so as to prevent its misuse as particulars of citizenship are sensitive. Access to the database would be terminated and legal action initiated if any agency was found misusing the data, it is stated in the Guideline.