Database has no financial, health details of Aadhaar holders, assures UIDAI

NEW DELHI: The UIDAI on Tuesday said it does not have information about bank accounts, health records, or financial and property details of Aadhaar holders, and “will never have” such details in its database.

The Aadhaar-issuing body said that its database contains only minimum details of the biometric ID holders, including select demographic information.

Seeking to dispel any possible misgivings about UIDAI ever tracking activities of individuals with the data it has, the authority said, “rest assured, UIDAI does not have your information about bank accounts, shares, mutual funds, financial and property details, health records, family, caste, religion and education etc. and will never have this information in its database”.

In a public outreach, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issued detailed FAQS or Frequently Asked Questions in national dailies, where it addressed about a dozen queries on concerns over data safety, profiling, and Aadhaar’s link with bank accounts and mobile numbers.

Citing the Aadhaar Act, UIDAI said that its provisions expressly prohibit it from controlling, collecting, keeping or maintaining any information about the purpose of authentication either on its own or through any entity.

“Aadhaar is an identifier, not a profiling tool,” it reiterated.

The move comes at a time when the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar Act and the use of the biometric identifier in various government and non-government services.

UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey last month made a presentation to the Supreme Court to defend the government’s ambitious Aadhaar scheme.

UIDAI further said that it uses “advanced security technologies” to safeguard data and also keeps upgrading them to meet new security threats and challenges.

It has also clarified that denial of services for lack of Aadhaar or failure of verification for technical reasons, should immediately be brought to the notice of the higher authorities in the departments concerned, and termed denials of such nature as “unlawful”.

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday justified the Aadhaar Act in the Supreme Court, saying it was a "fair and reasonable law" which complied with the tests prescribed by the historic verdict on the right to privacy.

A nine-judge constitution bench, on August 24 last year, had declared the right to privacy as a fundamental right and termed it as an intrinsic part of right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Centre on Tuesday referred to the verdict and said the reasonable restrictions, which are applicable on right to life, would also govern the right to privacy.

It told a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which is examining the validity of Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law, that the privacy verdict provided that State can seek certain information if there is a law, a legitimate state interest and the proportionality doctrine to weigh citizens' privacy and the State's interests.

"The lead (privacy) judgment of Justice D Y Chandrachud says that existence of law, legitimate state interest, and proportionality, are the tests to be applied to judge the privacy violation, if any," Attorney General K K Venugopal told the bench which also comprised Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan.

"The Aadhaar Act meets the standards and has adequate safeguards. The Aadhaar Act is a just, fair, and reasonable law. It is in pursuance of a larger public interest, including preventing dissipation of social welfare benefits, prevention of black money and money laundering...," he said, adding that these were all "legitimate State interests".

The Aadhaar scheme also satisfies the test of propor- tionality by showing a rational nexus between the means and the goal, he said, adding that all subsidies were part of right to life with dignity and would prevail over the right to privacy.

Venugopal said a law, which is constitutionally valid, does not become "invalid" on the ground of improper implementation and, moreover, the Aadhaar Act has kept the invasion to privacy, if any, to the minimum level.

Referring to separate concurring privacy verdicts penned by other judges, the Attorney General said they recognised that right to privacy was not "absolute" and legitimate state interests can override it.