By HARISH V NAIR
UPDATED: 22:46 GMT, 16 February 2014
The raging row over Aadhaar cards has taken a new twist in the Supreme Court.
While heated arguments have been on for the past six months over the constitutional validity of the card and making them mandatory to get benefits, new petitions are now being filed by individuals for permission to 'opt out' of the scheme.
These people are seeking the destruction of all personal information and details stored in the Unique Identification Authority of India's database, to prevent abuse.
New troubles
This has given a new headache to the UIDAI, the Centre's nodal agency which issues the cards.
Though the three-judge bench headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan is yet to pass final orders on the affidavits filed by two deponents - Reetika Khera, an Economics Professor at IIT Delhi, and Sahana Manjesh, a lawyer - judges are of the prima-facie view that the deponents should first approach the UIDAI with their plea because otherwise such petitions have "no sanctity before the court".
Khera and Manjesh think the manner in which biometric details are collected - without any safeguard - by private contractors and NGOs hired by the UIDAI makes it prone to misuse.
They contend that biometric identification denoted for UID, namely the iris scan, finger print identification, and the personal details collected, can easily be misused by a miscreant.
More such petitions are expected to be filed, especially because of the Supreme Court interim ruling of September 23, 2013, where the apex court said that the card cannot be made mandatory to enjoy government schemes and subsidies.
Glitches
"There are serious problems the way the UID project is being implemented. At some places in the enrolment form, the consent box was being checked without asking or explaining to people what it meant.
"There were other glitchces too - such as year and date of birth was being arrived at by guessing. This has implications for those schemes where age is an eligibility parameter like scholarships or pensions", Khera, who attended various Aadhaar enrolment camps, said in the affidavit.
"There is a complete lack of awareness on the absence of data protection and potential misuse of biometrics. The data collected from me was without providing me proper knowledge of risks involved. In such cases, it is necessary that I be permitted to opt out of the Aadhaar enrolment number allotted to me with a guarantee that data collected from me will be destroyed completely," he added.
Denying that citizens' right to privacy was being violated, the UIDAI has said it does not in any way part with any confidential information.
"The details given are not accessible even to the persons who seek verification of the identity of the Aadhaar card-holder," the centre said in its affidavit.