Technology that widens access to healthcare can also enable discrimination. Discuss in the context of portable diagnostics and online platforms.

Technology itself is neutral. What it does depends on regulation and on social attitudes. Portable ultrasound and online platforms have brought diagnostics closer to underserved people. In a society that prefers sons, the same tools also make sex selection easier. MoHFW raised this concern at its October 2026 National Workshop on the PC&PNDT Act [1].

How technology widens access

• Portable diagnostics let health workers examine patients where they are, outside fixed clinics. MoHFW holds that technology must advance healthcare and social inclusion [1].
• Digital platforms make it easier to register centres, monitor them and check compliance. Telangana and Gujarat demonstrated their digital PC&PNDT systems at the workshop [1].

How the same technology enables discrimination

• Machines that move are hard to inspect. The 2003 amendment brought ultrasound machines explicitly under the Act [2]. But inspection still focuses on fixed premises, and even that is weakly recorded. The CAG could not find how many inspections took place between 2019 and 2021 [3].
• Online advertising: Section 22 bans advertisements for sex determination. Social media and online platforms now carry such offers in disguised form [1].
• Records are missing. Many States had no online registration system [4]. Telangana had not published its list of registered centres [5]. So an advertiser or a portable machine cannot be traced to a registered owner.
• Punishment rarely follows. Only 617 of 3,158 court cases ended in conviction [4]. Rajasthan and Maharashtra had the lowest sex ratio at birth (SRB) and also the most pending cases [4].

Balancing access with equity

• Use digital tools against digital misuse. States can send takedown requests to platforms through the Sahyog Portal, working with I4C (MHA) [1].
• Keep complete digital registries that track every portable device. Enforcement should not make things harder for legitimate diagnostic centres [1].
• Change social attitudes. The SRB rose from 898 to 918 between 2014–16 and 2022–24 [1], alongside Beti Bachao Beti Padhao [6]. Social change has to go hand in hand with enforcement.

Portable diagnostics and online platforms show both sides of health technology: they widen access and make discrimination easier. The answer is regulation built into the technology itself, with traceable devices, platforms held accountable and publicly available data. Combined with continued work on attitudes, this lets innovation serve Article 14's promise of equality and SDG 5 on gender equality, not undermine it.