‘UNIQUE MAKES YOU THE ONLY ONE’
As the five judges on the bench write nuanced judgments on the identity project’s validity, here are some choice excerpts:
section of the society.
‘Benefits’ and ‘services’ as mentioned in Section 7 should be those which have the colour of some kind of subsidies etc., namely, welfare schemes of the Government whereby Government is doling out such benefits which are targeted at a particular deprived class. It would cover only those ‘benefits’ etc. the expenditure thereof has to be drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India. On that basis, CBSE, NEET, JEE, UGC etc. cannot make the requirement of Aadhaar mandatory as they are outside the purview of Section 7 and are not backed by any law.
For the enrolment of children under the Aadhaar Act, it would be essential to have the consent of their parents/guardian. Such children who are enrolled under Aad- haar with the consent of their parents, shall be given the option to exit.
Insofar as the school admission of children is concerned, requirement of Aadhaar would not be compulsory as it is neither a service nor subsidy.
Linking made compulsory not only for opening a new bank account but even for existing bank accounts with a stipulation that if the same is not done then the account would be deactivated, with the result that the holder of the account would not be entitled to operate the bank account till the time seeding of the bank account with Aadhaar is done. This amounts to depriving a person of his property.
We find that this move of mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts does not satisfy the test of proportionality. other than those that have been approved. While developing an identification system of the magnitude of Aadhaar, security concerns relating to the data of 1.2 billion citizens ought to be addressed. These issues have not been dealt with by the Aadhaar Act. By failing to protect the constitutional rights of citizens.
From the verification log, it is possible to locate the places of transactions by an individual in the past five years. It is also possible through the Aadhaar database to track the current location of an individual, even without the verification log. The architecture of Aadhaar poses a risk of potential surveillance activities through the Aadhaar database. Any leakage in the verification log poses an additional risk of an individual’s biometric data being vulnerable to unauthorised exploitation by third parties.
The technology deployed in the Aadhaar scheme reduces different constitutional identities into a single identity of a 12-digit number and infringes the right of an individual to identify herself/himself through a chosen means. Aadhaar is about identification and facilitates a proof of identity. It mustn’t be allowed to obliterate constitutional identity.
Creating strong privacy protection laws and instilling safeguards may address or at the very least assuage some of the concerns associated with the Aadhaar scheme which severely impairs informational self-determination,individual privacy, dignity and autonomy. In order to uphold the democratic values of the Constitution, the government needs to address the concerns highlighted in this judgment which would provide a strong foundation for digital initiatives, which are imminent in today’s digital age.