Union Minister of State, Alphons Kannanthanam, claimed that not one case has come up in the past three-and-a-half years when the biometric data of any Aadhaar holder has been leaked in India. (Source: Facebook)
Union Minister of State for IT, Culture and Tourism Alphons Kannanthanam on Friday said that people complain of intrusion into privacy in India even as they have ‘no problem’ giving fingerprint details and becoming naked before the white man for visas.
“We have absolutely no problems going and putting our fingerprints and the iris and getting your whole body naked before the white man at all. We have no problem. But when the government of India, which is your government, asks you your name and your address, nothing more, there’s a massive revolution in the country saying it’s an intrusion into the privacy of the individual. I mean, how far can we go? Let the Supreme Court decide,” Kannanthanam said during a valedictory session at the #future global digital summit in Kochi.
Maintaining that he has ‘limitations’ to talk about privacy concerns of Aadhaar as the Supreme Court was hearing the case, he, however, sought to allay such fears. “Not one case has come up in the past three-and-a-half years when the biometric data of any Aadhaar holder has been leaked in India. The government of India has protected the data and this has been possible because we use the latest technologies and we constantly upgrade it,” he said.
The #future global digital summit was conducted to pave the way for the digital transformation of Kerala, where internet penetration is highest in the country. Hundreds of delegates, entrepreneurs, startup founders and CEOs took part in panel discussions and deliberations at the summit.