Aadhaar and privacy

Now that The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 is set to become an enactment, the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre must address concerns raised in informed quarters over the privacy of a billion people whose biometric and demographic details would form part of what is going to be the world’s largest centralized database of such nature.

Considering that the Bill allows the government to access the data collected for national security reasons, there is need to clarify that the provision would not be misused

Whether it is the aam admi or the ultra-high net worth individual, everybody needs to know for sure that the private information would not be compromised in a nation where corruption is a serious problem. At a time when traditional values such as free speech and tolerance have taken a beating, it is all the more important for all ‘right’-thinking (pun intended) people to put the record straight. The Centre must spell out the strategy it would adopt to protect the humungous database.

If the BJP-led government thought it fit to move the Aadhaar Bill as a money bill to obviate scrutiny by the opposition parties, where is the guarantee that tomorrow it wound not access the database on the sly for communal, religious or racial profiling to further its political agenda and geopolitical dream like Akhand Bharath? If the Aadhaar number is meant only to streamline payment of benefits to targeted individuals and cut down on massive wastage and fraud; where is the need to get everybody on board willy-nilly, including those who may not be interested in accessing government subsidies and welfare benefits? By requiring production of Aadhaar card for everything under the sun; the Union government has already made its possession obligatory in spite of the Supreme Court’s 2013 clear order that no official benefit can be withdrawn for want of the card. Considering that the Bill allows the government to access the data collected for national security reasons, there is need to clarify that the provision would not be misused.

How about hackers? Umpteen websites of government departments, both at the Centre and in States, have been hacked; and, our babus have always blamed Pakistani or Chinese cyber crooks for it. Such concerns cannot be swept under the carpet while passing the Bill.