Aadhaar should evolve as India’s national ID

The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, the unique national identification programme launched in India in 2009, but at the same time diluted the scope of its use to protect the right of privacy of Indian citizens. It is a landmark judgement — one that has seemingly settled a lot of questions around the widening use of Aadhaar and one that assuages the growing concerns and fears of many Indian citizens. Private businesses can no longer ask for Aadhaar details as mandatory information. The identification will now be mandatory solely for government subsidies, schemes and services, which was the intended use of Aadhaar anyway at the time of conception. The idea behind this identification programme was to have a new architecture of governance that is built on technology. The system can bring about enormous efficiency gains especially in government service delivery, and offers a unique opportunity to transform governance standards in India. Since its inception, the government has saved over $13 billion in direct transfers.

However, the latest debate over Aadhaar highlights the concerns over data, in general, around the world. It shows how pervasive and problematic our relationship with data has become. The judgment acknowledges the risks involved by letting private sector access enormous information about people. If in wrong hands, power of data can be wielded to threaten democratic processes. And Aadhaar has collated a lot of information already. The solution doesn’t lie in restricting its use but in empowering it. Aadhaar is a unique project and should be developed further but with the right set of technological infrastructure in place, which are missing as at now. The concerns about privacy in India have arisen because sanctity of data isn’t maintained. The supreme court has struck a right balance. In fact, it has provided a road map for the Indian government to build on to ensure that the good work done on the system does not go waste. Digital India would be empowered with robust digital infrastructure. Aadhaar should evolve as India’s national identification programme, but it should not be rushed.