Indian Supreme Court Imposes Limits on National Biometric Identity Program
By Benjamin Richmond
India’s Supreme Court upheld the legality of Aadhaar, the country’s ambitious biometric ID program. The court ruled four-to-one in favor of the program but limited its usage to government services and barred it from being used by private entities over privacy concerns, according to the Washington Post.
Justice Arjan Kumar Sikiri ruled that “Aadhaar empowers the marginalized section of the society and gives them an identity,” arguing that the program is legal and in the public interest, but it must balance civil rights. The verdict also states that “there needs to be balancing of two competing fundamental rights, right to privacy on one hand, and right to food, shelter, and employment on the other hand.” In the past year, the court ruled that privacy is a legal right.
The ruling restricts usage of Aadhaar exclusively to government services. The panel ruled that the program provides the government benefits in efficiently allocating welfare payments to citizens, but private companies can no longer require Aadhaar identity as a way of verifying customer identity. The court also permitted children to opt out of the program once they are legally adults if they no longer require welfare benefits from the government.
A lawyer for those suing the government told the Washington Post that this ruling “effectively makes Aadhaar voluntary, not mandatory.” CNN reports that Sambit Patra, a spokesman for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Indian People’s Party, also views the ruling as a victory because the court upheld the program’s constitutionality.
According to the Washington Post, the Aadhaar program, the name of which means foundation in Hindi, gives each of India’s more than a billion citizens a 12-digit number on a card tied to their fingerprints and retinal scan. This program began in 2009 under a government lead by the Indian Congress Party and has been expanded by Modi. About 90 percent of Indians have enrolled in it, according to CNN. Participation is voluntary but is, in practice, essential to access many government services. Originally conceived as a method to identify people fraudulently claiming government benefits, the program has been transformed into something of a necessity for Indian citizens; they have to show their cards for government and private services including establishing bank accounts, reserving flights, and enrolling in schools. The program has made it easier for Indians to open bank accounts, but skepticism remains.
The Washington Post reports that the first lawsuit against this program was filed in 2012 by a retired judge who argued that Aadhaar “had no statutory basis and violated the right to privacy.” As the program develops, concerns over sales of data have emerged as well as issues of hacking and personal data being compromised, as was reported this summer by multiple Indian news outlets. Criticism over state access to personal data remains after this ruling. CNN reports that Nikhil Pahwa, the co-founder of India’s Internet Freedom Foundation, criticized the program as a “means of surveillance on citizens” and called it “a major national security risk because of the leaks that have happened.”