The Ministry of Digital Economy will submit a Cabinet paper this month seeking approval to establish a National Data Exchange Centre that would let government institutions share data with one another under a formal legal framework, Deputy Minister Eranga Weeraratne said on Wednesday.
The proposed centre would be the first dedicated inter-agency data-sharing mechanism in Sri Lanka’s public sector, replacing the ad-hoc bilateral pipelines that currently exist between line ministries, departments and statutory bodies. Weeraratne said the centre would “create opportunities for seamless data sharing between institutions” as part of the wider digitalisation and networking drive across government.
The Deputy Minister said the practical effect for citizens would be that they no longer have to visit several institutions to complete a single transaction — a long-standing pain point in services that require records held by multiple agencies.
Crucially, he said the transfer of any record from one institution to another would require the citizen’s consent. The centre itself would be established under “a formal legal framework,” Weeraratne said, indicating fresh legislation rather than reliance on existing administrative instruments.
The announcement adds detail to a track that has been moving since the Ministry’s earlier framework decisions on remote public-service delivery and the reorganisation of ICTA into a Digital Economy Authority and GovTech entity. It also lands shortly after the Gates Foundation pledged AI-for-digital-transformation support on the margins of an event Weeraratne attended in Singapore.
Source: NewsFirst.
