WILL UIDAI TAKE THE BLOOD SAMPLE, NEXT

NEW DELHI: The UIDAI, which runs the Aadhaar identification programme, has been given wide powers and could tomorrow ask people to give their blood samples too, a Supreme Court judge observed on Wednesday, expressing concern at the extent of powers that the 2016 Aadhaar law had given to the UIDAI, or the Unique Identification Authority of India. "Is this not an excessive delegation of power and violation of right to privacy," Justice DY Chandrachud observed during the five-judge bench's hearing on a batch of petitions that challenge the programme. Justice Chandrachud was pointing to provisions in the Aadhaar law that empower the UIDAI to enrol, apart from fingerprints and Iris scan, "any other biological attributes" of an individual. It is too open-ended, he remarked. "Tomorrow, UIDAI may even say give your blood sample for doing DNA test," the judge remarked. The Centre's top lawyer KK Venugopal said he couldn't say about tomorrow. "It is possible that blood, urine or saliva samples are collected. As and when it happens there are several NGOs who will challenge the same and this court can examine it at that stage," Venugopal told the constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. In response to Venugopal's assertion that collection of biometric and demographic data, including fingerprints for Aadhaar, did not violate privacy, Justice Chandrachud said "pervasive use" of fingerprints beyond a specific purpose appeared to be a problem and breaches proportionality. It isn't a problem when it is used at a limited level like in the case of prisoner identification.’’