e_Paper, Friday, August 25, 2017

8
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2017
DT
News
India top court rules
on right to privacy in
battle over biometric
ID programme
This file photo taken on January 18, 2017 shows an Indian visitor giving
a thumb impression to withdraw money from his bank account with his
Aadhaar or Unique Identification (UID) card in Hyderabad
AFP
• Reuters, New Delhi
WORLD
India’s top court unanimously
ruled on Thursday that individual
privacy is a fundamental
right, a verdict that will
impact everything from the
way companies handle personal
data to the roll-out of
the world’s largest biometric
ID card programme.
A nine-member bench of
India’s Supreme Court announced
the ruling in a major
setback for the Narendra
Modi-led government, which
argued that privacy was not a
fundamental right protected
by the constitution.
The court ordered that two
earlier rulings by large benches
that said privacy was not fundamental
in 1954 and 1962 now
stood overruled, and it declared
privacy was “an intrinsic part of
the right to life and liberty” and
“part of the freedoms guaranteed”
by the constitution.
“This is a blow to the government
because the government
had argued that people
don’t have a right to privacy,”
said Prashant Bhushan, a senior
lawyer involved in the case.
India’s law ministry was not
reachable for comment, but
the Law Minister Ravi Shankar
Prasad is expected to weigh in
on the ruling at a news conference
late on Thursday.
The judgment also has
a bearing on broader civil
rights, as well as a law criminalising
homosexuality. Lawyers
said it also impacts a ban
imposed on the consumption
of beef in many states and on
alcohol in some states.
In his personal conclusion,
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul
wrote privacy is a fundamental
right and it protects the
inner sphere of an individual
from interference from both
state and non-state actors and
lets individuals make autonomous
life choices.
The ruling is the second
landmark decision to come
from the Supreme Court this
week.
Aadhaar setback
The privacy judgment was
delivered at the end of the
tenure of the chief justice of
India, Jagdeep Singh Khehar,
who retires in a few days.
The ruling comes against
the backdrop of a large multi-party
case against the mandatory
use of national identity
cards, known as Aadhaar, as
an infringement of privacy.
There have also been concerns
over data breaches.
Critics say the ID card links
enough data to create a full
profile of a person’s spending
habits, their friends, property
they own and a trove of other
information.
Aadhaar, which over one
billion Indians have already
signed up for, was set up to be
a secure form of digital identification
for citizens, one that
they could use for government
services.
But as it was rolled out,
concerns arose about privacy,
data security and recourse
for citizens in the face of data
leaks and other issues.
Over time, Aadhaar has
been made mandatory for the
filing of tax returns and operating
bank accounts. Companies
have also pushed to gain
access to Aadhaar details of
customers.
Those opposed to the
growing demand for Aadhaar
data cheered the ruling. •