Sayeed Muhammad: The Supreme Court of India has ruled that the country’s controversial biometric identity scheme is constitutional, adding that it does not violate the right to privacy.
However, the court restricted the scope of the Aadhaar scheme, saying that it could not be compulsory for bank accounts, mobile connections or school admissions, reports BBC.
The world’s largest biometric ID database covers welfare and tax payments and access to social services, where over a billion Indians have already been enrolled.
Interestingly enough, many don not have other forms of identification – only 65 million own a passport and 200 million have a driving licence.
Those who enrolled in Aadhaar received a unique 12-digit identification number after submitting their fingerprints and retina scans. About 30 petitioners went to court to argue that the scheme infringed Indians’ privacy.
“Aadhaar gives dignity to the marginalised. Dignity to the marginalized outweighs privacy,” said the five-judge bench of the Indian apex court, continuing, “One can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Therefore, they said that people would still need their Aadhaar numbers to access government welfare schemes and to pay taxes.
Nevertheless, the court said that private entities including mobile phone operators and banks would no longer have the authority to demand customers’ Aadhaar numbers and instructed the government to “bring out a robust data protection law urgently”.
The court kept on saying schools could not insist on children’s Aadhaar numbers to enrol students, further adding that no child could be denied state welfare benefits for the want of an Aadhaar number.
The judgement was not unanimous as two judges of the five-member bench said that they disagreed with several aspects of the judgement, including the manner in which its legality had been determined in parliament.
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