The legal fight in the Supreme Court over the Central government making it mandatory to mention the Aadhaar number while filing income tax returns has taken an interesting turn with the attorney-general’s submission that individuals did not enjoy absolute rights over their bodies. A-G Mukul Rohatgi stated that “the concept of absolute right over one’s body was a myth” and cited various laws which limit this right while slamming those who refused to submit their biometric details for Aadhaar enrolment. Rohatgi noted that under Indian laws, individuals were prohibited from committing suicide and ingesting narcotic drugs, and women in an advanced stage of pregnancy were forbidden from abortion. He also pointed out that people suspected of drunken driving had no option but to blow into breathalysers and submit to blood tests. On the face of it, Rohatgi has certainly made a very pressing case for making the collection of Aadhaar biometrics mandatory.
However, the instances Rohatgi cites involve restrictions on people who are on the verge of committing a criminal offence or those who put themselves and others in harm’s way. In contrast, the argument for making Aadhaar mandatory for filing I-T returns subsumes both law-abiding citizens and tax-evaders. Among the honest taxpayers, there are many citizens who are genuinely wary of privacy safeguards within Aadhaar. There is also a section which fears that Aadhaar will become an all-pervasive surveillance system. In an earlier hearing in the case, senior advocate Shyam Divan had argued that applying biometric collection for limited purposes like passports and prisoner identification could not be equated with Aadhaar where the entire country’s biometrics were collected wholesale and stored in the central depository and used for routine purposes.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has repeatedly assured citizens that the Aadhaar database is leak-proof. But the Aadhaar details of beneficiaries of pensions and social justice schemes are being repeatedly uploaded on various government websites in violation of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act. The Act stipulates that no Aadhaar number or core biometric information collected or created in respect of an Aadhaar number holder shall be published, displayed, or posted publicly. While this may not be a hack of the Aadhaar database, it is clearly a violation of privacy. Aadhaar is a game changer in economic empowerment schemes and for plugging leakages. With the stakes so high, the Centre must not remain in denial about the security flaws and must crack down on government departments and private entities that are careless with Aadhaar data.
