The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the Aadhaar Act, which is also the national identity card, serves a much larger public interest and benefits the marginalised but the data collected should be minimal. It also asked the government to introduce a robust data protection law as soon as possible.
The five judge bench of the Supreme Court said that the Act is constitutionally valid and does not violate the right to privacy but suggested some amendments to the Aadhaar Act and put some safeguards in place, while delivering a verdict on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar.
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Justice A K Sikri, who is part of the five-judge bench ruling on the validity of the Aadhaar Act and who wrote the majority judgment, said that Aadhar need not be linked to mobile phone, banks and schools and CBSE, NEET, UGC, corporates cannot ask for the Aadhaar details to be shared. While PAN cards and Income Tax returns will be compulsorily linked to Aadhaar, PPF and NSC need not be.
Moreover, the apex court has struck down the provision that biometric data collected under the Aadhaar Act can be collected for five years and said that the data cannot be kept by the authority beyond six months.
Aadhaar is presently the world’s largest biometric and identity database with 122.56 crore numbers issued to Indian citizens. These have been used for 2,322 crore authentications.
The bench comprised of Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri, CJI Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan.
However, it is not clear what will happen to the data that has already been shared with various corporates in exchange for services or given to schools for securing admissions.
The Supreme Court heard the case for a record 38 days on 27 petitions that had challenged the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and called it a violation of the right to privacy. Main points:
- Better than to be unique than to be best
- Aadhaar collects minimum personal data
- Aadhaar enrollment was foolproof
- Provides identification to poor
- State can impose reasonable restriction on rights
- Concept of human dignity has to be enlarged. With right to education we went from thumb to signature, with digital technology we are moving back to thumb
- Only joint secy and above can decided on sharing the Aadhaar data
- Let there be a mininal collection of data; striking down section 33 clause 2
- Data collected cannot be stored more than six months
- Children don’t need to share their Aadhar Card; cant be denied admission for the lack of Aadhar card
- Corporates can’t demand personal data
- Under Section 7 limit it to PDS, LPG, food security
- Strikes down Section 54 (UIDAI has full power to increase the scope of the card to any service)
- Reads down Section 57 which permits private entities to avail of Aadhaar data
- CBSE, NEET cant demand Aadhaar
- Bank accounts don’s need to be linked with Aadhaar card
- Aadhaar has to be linked to PAN cards and IT returns.
- Asked the government not to issue the card to illegal immigrants
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