Rights activists have welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision on Aadhaar though many feel more clarity is needed on how de-linking of Aadhaar-related information will happen. They fear it could open the floodgates of legal disputes.
“The SC has put a stop to the ubiquity of Aadhaar by curtailing its scope and limiting it to welfare schemes and filing of I-T returns. Striking down Section 57 that gave access to private companies puts a stop to this ‘Mission Creep’,” Mishi Choudhary, Founder, Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), told BusinessLine . The judgment underscores the need of a robust privacy framework for the largest democracy, she added.
The development comes in the backdrop of a data protection law that is being put in place under Justice BN Srikrishna, for which suggestions have been sought from the public.
“Private bodies like phone companies, banks, schools, airlines and others cannot ask for Aadhaar. People cannot be denied entitlements under government schemes for failure of biometric identification. Takes care of our main concerns,” tweeted Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan.
Ashok Agarwal, another activist-advocate, said termed the ruling a very good judgment, especially from the perspective of admissions to schools.
Amnesty India, in a tweet, said: “Making an Aadhaar card a prerequisite to access essential services and benefits can obstruct access to several constitutional rights, including the rights of people to food, health care, education and social security. The government has a legal and moral obligation to ensure that nobody is denied their rights simply because they don’t have an Aadhaar card. The government must now address legitimate concerns about privacy, surveillance and breaches of the Aadhaar database, especially since India does not have a data protection law.”
Activists also expressed their concern on how the de-linking of this data will happen.
SFLC’s Choudhary pointed out that the limitation about time of storage, on metadata analysis and State interference are important developments for privacy-related issues. Already, around 1.2 billion people have enrolled.
(With inputs from Agencies)