SC decision on Aadhaar vindicates our stand: Nandan Nilekani

BANGALORE: The former chairman of the Unique Identification Development Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani says that Supreme Court' interim decision to not allow personal data of an individual to be shared between different government agencies is vindication of what it had always stood for.

"The SC (Supreme Court) decision not to share data is based on UIDAI's SLP (Special Leave Petition) to SC. So it is what UIDAI had asked for," Nandan in an email replied to ET.

Earlier this month, UIDAI approached the Apex Court, challenging a Bombay High Court order which had ordered the Agency to share biometric data to help solve an ongoing criminal investigation. The UIDAI in its appeal before the Supreme Court had stated that the lower court's ruling could potentially open up the "floodgates for all kinds of requests for resident data". additionally, the UIDAI pointed out that matching partial data to information stored in the UIDAI database would likely result in errors.

On Monday, Nandan writing in his blog, claimed victory after the apex Court verdict, saying the Supreme Court has upheld the UIDAI’s view.

"We have always stated that the data collected from residents would remain private, and not be shared with other agencies," Nandan wrote in his blog.

Nandan also supported the decision of not making Aadhaar mandatory, saying that the agency itself had said from the start it will not make the Aadhaar number mandatory.