FSSAI has issued an order dated 14 July ,2021 related to Data sharing guidelines and format for acquiring data from FSSAI in a formal manner.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) being a statutory body under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, GOI established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption and for matter connected therewith or incidents thereto. FSSAI has its online FoSCoS portal (https://foscos.fssai.gov.in) for enabling food businesses in India to apply and obtain FSSAI License and Registration Certificate, which is a complete online process. Further, for the purpose of training food handlers and supervisors, FSSAI has a Food Safety Training and Certificate portal (https://fostac.fssai.gov.in). Similarly, FSSAI has several other online platforms like Food Import Clearing Systems (FICS), Food Products Identity and verification System (FPIVS) Indian Food laboratory Network (InFoLNet), Food Safety and Compliance through Regular Inspections and Sampling (FoSCoRIS) for conducting the regulatory processes and are hosted on NIC servers. The data available on FSSAI’s online portals mainly pertains to food businesses in India. With web-enablement, the data can be made available through internet at all levels whether Government Departments or associations of other stakeholders of food safety ecosystem. The data transfer is gradually shifting from sequential transfer from particular authority to direct web transfer as per data sharing policy so that information is available to all simultaneously. As the portals are hosted on the GOI’s NIC servers, data is secured. Further adequate measures for data security are in place for restricting access to confidential business data by unauthorised entities.
Involvement of large number of organisations ranging from government, semi-government, food business associations, consumer organisations, private bodies, civil society, non-government organisations (NGOs), Students of Food Technology and all other stakeholders usually require data for various purposes and raise their request to concurrent authorities to access data. A limited section of data pertaining to food businesses is sensitive and cannot be shared with all publicly through the website/concerned portal. The requests for sensitive data shall be made as per guidelines as issued from time to time. The concerned authority on consideration of the request for customised data may decide to provide or not provide the requisite data. As far as non-sensitive data of business is concerned, which can be used for various purposes, studies, etc. the data can be obtained from the specific online portals of FSSAI and can be accesses by anyone and anywhere.
The FSSAI has decided, with the approval of competent authority, to issue the guidelines related to data sharing. Henceforth, the data pertaining to Food Businesses as available with FSSAI will be shared only as per the attached guidelines and when the request is made as per the format given below under Annexure-I along with the undertaking in Annexure-II
Source : FSSAI
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