Who has the copyright on the Election Commission’s new EVMs?

A member of the Election Commission has questioned whether the agency has the copyright to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) designed using their prototype.

Mahbub Talukder, one of the five election commissioners in the KM Nurul Huda-led commission, also questioned where the digital machines were coming from, who is providing them and where their parts are being imported from.

The EC has allocated Tk 40 billion to purchase 150,000 additional EVMs before settling the question of the machines’ copyright.

Members of the EC specialists committee said the EVMs can prevent ‘all kinds of irregularities’ as they require the national identification number and fingerprints of a voter to cast their vote. They added that the EC should own the copyright or patent of the machine for future use.

“It has been proposed that the patent of the new EVM will belong to the EC—meaning the EC will own the hardware, software and any other technology used in the EVM,” a member of EC technical specialist committee, Prof Md Haider Ali, of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Dhaka University, told bdnews24.com.

রাজশাহী সিটি কর্পোরেশন নির্বাচনে শনিবার ইভিএমে ভোট দিচ্ছেন এক নারী।

The EVMs were built in 2010 with design and technical knowledge from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology or BUET and support from Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory or BMTF, which is owned by the Bangladesh army. BUET owned the design and patent of the EVMs that time.

The EVMs were first used for a ward poll during the Chattogram City Corporation eight years ago. It was then used in one-third of the polling centres in Narayanganj and in all centres of Cumilla and Narsingdi.

An EVM technical glitch during the 2012 Rangpur election led to conflict between BUET and the EC. The following year, after technical errors recurred in the Rajshahi election, BUET alleged the EC had breaching the contract.

BUET said the EC has used ‘local batteries’ instead of the imported Chinese batteries required in the machines. The EC failed to follow the suggestion from BUET despite its position as the owner of the patent and design of the EVM, said BUET.

A back-and-forth argument ensued over the incident and at one point the use of the EVM was ceased.

A new prototype for the EVMs was developed by the EC and the BMTF and first used at a polling centre in Rangpur in 2017.

“I am not aware of the conflict over the patent but the new EVM, which requires fingerprint data, should be owned by the EC,” Prof Haider Ali told bdnews24.com.

But he added that no official announcement had been made or gazette issued on the subject.

“We discussed the matter at a technical committee meeting two months ago and both the BMTF and EC reached a consensus that EC should own the patent of the EVM,” said Prof Ali.

“We requested that the EC own the patent of the new EVM so it can outsource to BMTF or other companies to make the EVMs,” said Prof Haider Ali when asked if there will be any complications over the patent if the EVMs are made by the BMTF using the imported machinery parts.

“But if the BMTF owns the patent then their permission will be required before buying it from others.”

“The EC will have the patent for new EVMs. The software, source code and other things are developed here. The BMTF will make it with imported machinery parts following the design,” said EC additional Commissioner Mokhlesur Rahman who is also the convener of the EC technical committee.

He said he was unaware of any other claimant of the patent for the new EVM.

BMTF has yet to claim a copyright for the new EVMs, Senior Maintenance Engineer of ICT Operations Sub-division in EC Muhammed Ashraf Hossain told bdnews24.com. He said these points will be clarified in the future during the supply contract with BMTF.