Concern for privacy: Activists' chorus grows for Aadhaar to go
Nisha Nambiar| TNN | Updated: Aug 27, 2017, 10:21 AM IST
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Is Aadhaar data protected? Is taking of fingerprints and iris scan an infringement of privacy? Citizens are grappling with such questions after Supreme Court declared that privacy is a fundamental right, protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty.
"One wonders whether taking fingerprints and iris scans and linking them to various data is not infringement of the right to privacy. Why must this data be linked to bank accounts?" Pune-based activist Vivek Velankar said.
Fellow activist Vijay Kumbhar said the government is mum on data security. "There are many cases of data being leaked. What is the guarantee that personal data collected will not be given out? Why are citizens forced to give it away?" he said.
President of Nagrik Chetana Manch Anupam Saraph has campaigned against Aadhaar. He told TOI that the present coercion to enrol and link Aadhaar to PAN, cellphones, bank accounts and practically all public and private databases is contempt of the apex court's orders.
"On the floor of Parliament, finance minis ter Arun Jaitley told members he was forcing people to get an Aadhaar. The coercion to link Aadhaar to PAN numbers, cellphones, bank accounts is not only foolish but also illegal and in contempt of the law," he said.
Saraph added that a government that does not call off the Aadhaar idea on its own after this ruling, would not just destroy its credibility, but also lose its respectability.
Saraph said if the government continued to protect Aadhaar, it would be a failure of democracy and an indication of the digital colonisation by Aadhaar.
Data protection is an issue, as everyone who enrolls for Aadhaar cannot escape the dangers of data being on a public platform. The dangers of Aadhaar cannot be nullified by data protection technology or laws, he said.
"Aadhaar destroys business and governance processes. It removes the steps of identification and consent in transactions with `authentication' which is not identification. It is not right for any transaction," he added.
No data protection or privacy law will be able to cure Aadhaar of these ills, Saraph said.The threat to Aadhaar data can only be resolved by destroying it and prohibiting the use of Aadhaar as was done to the national ID data by the UK.
"One wonders whether taking fingerprints and iris scans and linking them to various data is not infringement of the right to privacy. Why must this data be linked to bank accounts?" Pune-based activist Vivek Velankar said.
Fellow activist Vijay Kumbhar said the government is mum on data security. "There are many cases of data being leaked. What is the guarantee that personal data collected will not be given out? Why are citizens forced to give it away?" he said.
President of Nagrik Chetana Manch Anupam Saraph has campaigned against Aadhaar. He told TOI that the present coercion to enrol and link Aadhaar to PAN, cellphones, bank accounts and practically all public and private databases is contempt of the apex court's orders.
"On the floor of Parliament, finance minis ter Arun Jaitley told members he was forcing people to get an Aadhaar. The coercion to link Aadhaar to PAN numbers, cellphones, bank accounts is not only foolish but also illegal and in contempt of the law," he said.
Saraph added that a government that does not call off the Aadhaar idea on its own after this ruling, would not just destroy its credibility, but also lose its respectability.
Saraph said if the government continued to protect Aadhaar, it would be a failure of democracy and an indication of the digital colonisation by Aadhaar.
Data protection is an issue, as everyone who enrolls for Aadhaar cannot escape the dangers of data being on a public platform. The dangers of Aadhaar cannot be nullified by data protection technology or laws, he said.
"Aadhaar destroys business and governance processes. It removes the steps of identification and consent in transactions with `authentication' which is not identification. It is not right for any transaction," he added.
No data protection or privacy law will be able to cure Aadhaar of these ills, Saraph said.The threat to Aadhaar data can only be resolved by destroying it and prohibiting the use of Aadhaar as was done to the national ID data by the UK.
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