People fear data collected can be misused

Mumbai: While the government is making Aadhaar compulsory for everything, the people are still apprehensive about it. While legal experts say that this is breach of right to privacy, concerned citizens are of the opinion that personal data collected by the government for Aadhaar can be misused.

According to Kamayani Mahabal, an activist who petitioned the Supreme Court against the “coercive attempts” of the government to make Aadhaar mandatory for everything the recent announcements of linking all personal data of individuals to Aadhaar was against the apex court order.

“The announcements are in contempt of SC orders which has reserved its judgement and stayed the implementation of Aadhaar linking for everything. It is illegal and infringes upon the privacy of individuals too. Though the government claims that having Aadhaar card is voluntary it is finding creative methods to coerce people to use it for everything,” said Ms Mahabal.

Senior counsel and expert on constitutional and international law, advocate Sujay Kantawala said, “Making Aadhaar mandatory for certain transactions linked to tax and revenue is a healthy practice. But, it cannot be foisted for everything a citizen does. It cannot be made so mandatory that it causes more problems than the intention of ease of business.”

Dr. Jose George, a former professor of University of Mumbai from the civic and politics department, said that the current ruling party was the one that opposed Aadhaar tooth and nail while they were in the opposition. Hence, it is surprising that they are now using Aadhaar “for everything,” he said. “Firstly Aadhaar has not been implemented democratically as it does not have the approval of the legislature. Secondly, it is discriminatory as lakhs of Indians who migrate to larger cities from villages do not have fixed addresses to secure an Aadhaar card. Thus, even if the government announces schemes for their benefit, as the scheme will be linked to Aadhaar they will not benefit from it. Hence, it needs to be implemented in a phased manner and not the way it is being done currently,” said Dr George.

In light of an IIT student being able to hack and get access to Aadhaar data of thousands of people, cyber experts have opined that in the absence of sufficient safety measures in place, the insistence of the government on linking everything to Aadhaar would be dangerous. “The government should beef up its security else it will become an easy access for persons thriving on cyber crime. It would be a disaster,” said a cyber expert, who did not want to be named.