Right to privacy not fundamental right: Centre to Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The government has said informational privacy or data privacy is not a fundamental right and insisted that the Aadhaar Act has enough inbuilt safeguards to ensure biometric records collected on enrolment are protected.

“Even if informational privacy is claimed, it cannot be a fundamental right,” attorney general KK Venugopal told a nine-judge bench on Thursday. The bench is debating whether the right to privacy should be declared a fundamental right.

Any information can be sought from a citizen on the grounds of legitimate state interests, he argued. However, he conceded that information procured during Aadhaar enrolment or any other state exercise such as census must be secured. Venugopal urged the court to desist from elevating a common law to a fundamental right as the founding fathers of the Constitution had “consciously considered” and “jettisoned” the idea.

“Right to privacy should not be read back into the Constitution,” he said. “That would be contrary to the Constitution.” “There are very stringent provisions in Aadhaar for data protection,” said additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta.