Right to Privacy Part - II

Click here for Part - I

Why in news?

The Supreme Court is hearing case regarding the right to privacy.

Will Supreme Court’s judgement on ‘Right to Privacy’ stop AADHAR?

• The heart of discussion should be on whether Aadhaar and the ‘data’ that it collects is an invasion of that right to privacy.
• Even if the right to privacy is judged as a fundamental right, it has to be proved that the UIDAI data actually invades privacy.

Why AADHAR is not detrimental?

• If the bank account is linked to Aadhaar and transactions are done via BHIM app, it is the bank that has the data, not the UIDAI.
• Same is the case for mutual fund transaction where the mutual fund or the property registry that has the details.
• People often gave details of their voter IDs or passports while making these transactions. If that didn’t mean that the Election Commission had a financial profile of users, same logic should apply for Aadhar.
• The GST alone will provide one billion records each month on items being bought/sold. Various open source apps are being built by using the data. This quashes the argument that the data is  being monopolised by UIDAI.
• Google or Facebook that collects information based on browsing history has more data about an individual than UIDAI.

• Once all government departments have managed to digitise their archives, all data about an individual including all financial records can be made available at single place using Unique ID.

What is the way ahead?

• BigData and Aadhaar could be used to keep women secure. e.g When a cab driver voluntarily gives his Unique ID, any person getting into a cab can check the background of the driver beforehand.
• Instead of data being owned by data companies like Google or Facebook, if there was a law to ensure it stayed with users and the users got to decide what do to with it, the possibilities are immense.

Source: The Financial Express