After six years wait, Aadhaar lets legal backing

NEW DELHI: Six years after being pending in the Parliament, the legislation which provides a statutory backing to Aadhaar has finally been passed in the Lok Sabha on Friday. The new bill which was introduced as a money bill will provide the ambitious project the much needed legal backing.

Introducing the bill in the Parliament, finance minister Arun Jaitley said almost 97 percent adult Indians now have an Aadhaar card and the legislation will go a long way in ensuring government subsidies and services directly reach the beneficiaries in entirety. The new bill called the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 would make it essential for people to provide their unique identity number for availing government benefits.

The bill, which makes Aadhaar a condition for "receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service" for which the expenditure is incurred from the Consolidated Fund of India makes strict provisions to safeguard citizen privacy and data with a clause that even courts would not be able to ask for "core biometric data" of residents. However, in case of national security, senior officials of the government or the judiciary can ask for identity or authentication information.

The passing of the bill also met with some criticism from experts and civil society who argued that having such a massive database of resident biometrics and data could be dangerous as the country still doesn’t have a strong privacy bill.

IT industry body Nasscom welcomed the Lok Sabha’s decision to pass the Aadhaar Bill 2016. "The bill will help bring transparency to the process of subsidy transfers and will also act as a one stop window for all government schemes intended to benefit the lower strata of the society. We are confident that this move will enable Aadhaar to be a key pillar in the creation of digital infrastructure in the country as well as a crucial catalyst in the realization of the PM’s vision of a Digital India," Nasscom said in a statement.