More than Aadhaar, it is the social media and also MNCs who are the actual custodians of our personal data. India needs Aadhaar but inadequacies must be addressed
Since the inception of democracy, there remains an unresolved debate on ‘privacy as a fundamental right’ versus an ‘absolute’ right. Similar to the freedom of speech and expression, the state deems certain rights as self-limiting. So, the will of the state ultimately supersedes the freedom of an individual. Petitioners have complained that Aadhaar is the leash around the citizens neck, a sinister device designed “to profile and track them with the ultimate objective of stifling dissent and influencing political decision-making”. While these view borders on paranoia, it is theoretically possible for a totalitarian state to extend itself to ultimately usurp the fundamental rights of the governed.
Some vital private information is anyway disclosed consensually when we consent to the terms to access social media sites, or while furnishing KYC details to banks, or while providing the basics for demographic profiling that is maintained on Government electoral records. Apprehensions arise when there is a feeling of state coercion in furnishing biometrics of iris and finger print that
comprises the unique identity for Aadhaar, which is now mandated in the larger interest of enhancing the Governments’ administrative efficiency.
The former is a voluntary and informed choice we make as users of social media platforms, to risk posting in public domain, the homes we inhabit, the jewellery we wear, the cars we buy and the exotic locales we holiday in on Facebook or Instagram. The display of Vanity Fair on social media platforms is an extension of the narcissistic traits in most of us, when we are conveniently unmindful of the consequences of the Government or cyber criminals having a peek into our personal lives.
If we agonise over the potential of the national data bank of Aadhaar being hacked into by cyber criminals or rogue nations, or the invasion of privacy by the state, then as users of social media and emails we had already inadvertently, we exposed ourselves to the threat of hacking the day we signed ‘I agree’ on the consent form to access applications like Facebook and Twitter, so vive la différenceIJ
Aadhaar, the worlds first online digital identity, launched in 2009, was originally intended as an authentication technology to plug pilferage in the dispensation of welfare schemes, when widespread corruption scuttled their efficacy. It was meant for availing benefits, like a lPG connection and subsidised rations through the public distribution system. By widening its scope, Aadhaar is now intended to cleanse other systems by collating data on benami properties and tax evasions, so that there is a sustained campaign to discredit its architecture by vested interests.
As of now, banks are privy to our transactions; our insurance company is privy to our claims, while our mobile phone knows everything about our virtual world and real life. Each of these are different silos of information. When these silos converge on the centralised data bank, officials manning the platform know almost everything about us, which is deemed as intrusion.
Even when purchasing goods or services above two lakh rupees, where furnishing PAN is mandatory, the transaction trail left behind makes it easy for the Government to integrate, monitor, record and analyse through ‘big data analytics’.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s tweet voices the concerns of skeptics, stating that the ‘UPA’s Aadhaar’ is equal to a voluntary instrument to empower the citizens. The NDA’s Aadhaar is a compulsory weapon to ‘disempower the citizens’.
The fact is that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has the potential to become the world’s largest surveillance apparatus to maintain vigilance over its citizens, and though the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) is a bigger and vaster institution, the difference is NSA watches over only non-Americans. Being the largest data bank available with a single authority, and where a handful of officials manning it have the potential to collude with outsiders, it necessitates the Government along with the legal fraternity, to revise the inadequacies of the Aadhaar Act of 2016.
However, there is an overdone and orchestrated fear being spread on the power of state surveillance because of Aadhaar. let’s rationalise and know that every user of a smartphone carries a ‘spy in his pocket’, as mobile phones are equipped with a GPS chip, making it the most effective device to track location. location information of visits to temples, restaurants or friends, added to tweets, plus facebook or instagram photos and phone records, all these when collated, provide complete and detailed profiling, more intrusive than Aadhaar. The Government can colate just three months of a citizens’ communication records to get a peek into ones private life, without even tapping into phones.
Further, Google, as also Apple, have access to the users phone location logs as they own the location trapping apps and the Operating System that supports the phone which create and record ones movements. In a way, these MNC’s are the custodians of our profile as much as the Government of India.
While Google, as a search-engine, provides access to information, it also collects information through browser history. That makes Facebook, Twitter and Google the worlds largest intelligence firms. Social media has lured us into lowering our guard online to freely air our social and political views in an assertion of our democratic rights. But our virtual footprints are the very indiscretions that potentially define our digital identity, regardless of Aadhaar.
Petitioners have enumerated multiple objections why the five-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra should strike down the Aadhaar Act, fearing it as a “surveillance technology masquerading as an authentication platform .” Aadhaar, it is apprehended, could potentially cripple commerce and administration in ways that are inconceivable, according to a study by an arm of the Reserve Bank of India, titled 'Biometrics and its impact in India'. The second objection by complainants was addressed in August last year, when the Supreme Court delivered a landmark verdict on The Right to Privacy, declaring it as a fundamental right, which is as intrinsic as the right to life. Third, skeptics question the urgency why Aadhaar was rushed through the money Bill route to push legislation, as it would not have held scrutiny in Rajya Sabha.
All in all, Aadhaar needs sound data protection legislation rather than trashing the platform. While the constitutional validity of Aadhaar is being questioned, let’s not get alarmist, and instead await the judiciary to do its job in protecting and upholding the rights of citizens. In the interim, the Government must make the structure full proof before making it mandatory for linkage to 150 services.
(The writer is an author and columnist)