Supreme Court notice to govts as PILs term Aadhaar dangerous

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked for views of state governments on a batch of public interest litigations challenging the legality of Aadhaar cards issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI). The SC notice came after the key petitioner in the case alleged Aadhaar implementation coerced citizens to part with biometric information which can be misused.

Aadhaar cards were being issued without any statutory basis, senior advocate Shyam Divan argued. “The state cannot keep a biometric archive to be used at will against citizens.

This is against the Constitution,” he contended. He questioned the manner in which the state was collecting this highly intrusive information in an allegedly voluntary scheme.

“Every institution now has limited information on an individual.

Aadhaar makes it possible to collect all information in one silo, with absolutely no safeguards to prevent its misuse,” he argued. “These could be sold by private entities entrusted with the task of issuing these cards for commercial use or be stolen by interested parties,” he said. “There is no informed consent either.

So there is nothing voluntary about Aadhaar,” Divan claimed.

“Even children are being asked to submit to biometric tests.” Divan said under the existing law, only courts could direct limited biometric tests on some criminal accused.

“These can also go overseas with far-reaching security implications,” he said. “No bill is pending either. There is no reference to biometrics in the UIDAI charter. To that extent it is uncanalised in every sense. It is like a private sector enterprise with no statutory safeguards. There are no rules or guidelines. It is openended and involves untested technology with consequences of unforeseen invasion of privacy.”

The bench, comprising Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde, however, questioned his line of argument at one juncture saying whether privacy was an issue that could be agitated in a poor country at all, but ultimately sought the state governments’ views on the issue of legality of the scheme.

“Sixty-eight per cent of girl children in the country were married off even before they turn 18… Most don’t have access to clean potable water. Is privacy important or Rs 1 a kilo rice more important? Will this section think about food or privacy?”

The bench had on September 23 thrown a spanner in the government move to link LPG subsidies to Aadhaar card, declaring that it could not deny those who did not have such cards from any social welfare benefits. This came as a blow to the government which was seeking to use these cards to weed out graft in supply of subsidised products.

Aadhaar was supposed to the first step towards weeding out those undeserving of subsidies too.