Pvt players collecting information not answerable to Govt for misuse of details
Don’t be shocked if your biometric information under Aadhaar card scheme finds its way into cyber market. The Government does not have any statutory safeguard in place to preserve and protect the personal data of citizens. Worse, the data is being managed by private parties who are not answerable to the Government in the event of misuse or commercial exploitation.
Highlighting this concern among others to challenge the Aadhaar scheme in Supreme Court, a PIl petitioner on Tuesday argued that the scheme was not voluntary as the Centre suggested it to be.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, who appeared for the petitioner SG Vombatkere, cited example of several States which made Aadhaar mandatory for availing of host of services.
For instance, in Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, admissions to school required students to have Aadhaar cards. Maharashtra recently made Aadhaar compulsory for Government employees to draw their salary and pay slips. Madhya Pradesh followed the Centre’s diktat to make Aadhaar mandatory for receiving pension and provident fund benefits in three districts while Himachal Pradesh linked the scheme to offer scholarships in universities.
This amounted to coercing citizens to part with their valuable right of privacy, Divan argued. The bench of Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde decided to issue notice to all States seeking their response in the matter by December 10.
When the court asked petitioner, “What is the real dangerIJ” Divan answered, “lack of any safeguard to ensure the collected data was kept safe and protected from any misuse.”
The project, he said, was ultra vires as it did not have a statutory backing. Moreover, no statutory guidance exists on crucial questions such as - who can collect biometric information, how it is to be collected and stored, protection of collected data, who can use the data and when it must be used.
Further, he pointed out how UID Authority of India signed memorandum of understanding with States which had no legal sanctity.
State appoints Registrars, who could even be a private person, who engaged private companies to collect biometric data. There is also the fear that the private party which collects the data then stores it in a personal laptop, which does not belong to the Government.
“What does he do with the dataIJ It is only a hope that he does not misuse it in this age of technical advancement,” Divan said.
Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran maintained that the scheme is voluntary and to reverse it now would be difficult as over half the population have it. But Divan wondered how children too could be brought under Aadhaar without taking their informed consent. The bench reminded Divan that privacy does not weigh similarly to all citizens in the background and circumstances of life in India where minor girls are married off by their guardians, mid day meal is more essential than education and for Rs 2 rice, people do not mind to give up their privacy.