Address Aadhaar fears: SC to govt
Right to food, education overrides privacy, says Centre, seeks permission for PPT presentation
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court asked the Centre on Wednesday to address the concerns of Aadhaar opponents that data collected for the unique identification system could lead to mass virtual surveillance and deprive those who lack the biometric ID of the benefits of state welfare programmes.
Attorney General KK Venugopal,the country’s top law officer, held out an assurance that the government will not deny citizens the benefits they are entitled to if their 12-digit unique identity number authentication fails, so long as they have an alternative ID proof. He also sought to allay concerns over Aadhaar by offering a Powerpoint presentation by the chief of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which oversees Aadhaar, before
the court.
Based on the arguments advanced by 30 petitioners challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra posed six questions for the attorney general to answer.
The top court asked if the
collection of data for Aadhaar could lead to a “path of surveillance” that may not be physical but virtual, and whether it could create a “stalking culture” under which every citizen would be seen as a potential wrongdoer.
It asked the Centre whether it could impose a scheme on citizens, who should be given an alternative to exit from the scheme, and whether data on individuals collected before the Aadhaar Act was put in 2016 shouldn’t be destroyed.
The top court asked if the data collected under Aadhaar was safe despite assurances that measures have been taken to protect it, and finally, it wanted to know if steps taken to secure the data could prove counterproductive.
“Petitioners rely on privacy and say ‘my individual dignity cannot be compromised.’ They say ‘I love my anonymity and my privacy is my preserve,”’ CJI Misra told Venugopal while framing the questions.
The bench wondered how pension can be refused to government employees who earn the money for the services they have rendered just because they do not have an Aadhaar number.
“There is no question of a bogus pension account, which nobody other than the individual operates. A pensioner could be 80 years old or suffering from a disease, making it impossible for him to authenticate his or her Aadhaar number... or a pensioner may be staying abroad and does not have Aadhaar. How can you stop their pension?” the court asked the AG, who assured the court on behalf of the government that nobody would be denied benefits that are due to them that if authentication under Aadhaar failed.
Voicing its concern, the bench said Aadhar could not become a tool of financial exclusion.
The court asked Venugopal to explain why it wasn’t possible to follow the Singapore model in which where every citizen does have a unique identity number, but in the form of an individual chip. “If it is meant for identification then why do you want to store data,” the court asked.