By Online Desk
In a majority judgment, a five-member Supreme Court bench on Wednesday validated the Aadhaar scheme saying that it empowers people on the margins of society and gives them dignity, which outweighs the harm. The top court also scrapped Section 57 that allows private entities to seek Aadhaar data, but allowed the biometric data to be used for government schemes and subsidies.
The challenges against Aadhaar had begun even before the Aadhaar law came into existence in 2016. So far, the Centre has issued 139 notifications, practically touching every aspect of a citizen’s day-to-day life, making Aadhaar mandatory for various services and benefits.
The challenges against Aadhaar had begun even before the Aadhaar law came into existence in 2016. Here are a few interesting stories covered by The New Indian Express since the birth of Aadhaar:
- HuffPost India revealed that the Aadhaar database, which contains the biometrics and personal information of over one billion Indians, was compromised by a software patch which disables critical security features of the software.
- Thousands of smartphone users in India were puzzled when a French security expert, Elliot Alderson, asked UIDAI why its toll-free helpline number is saved in everybody's phonebooks by default, without their consent.
- TRAI chairman RS Sharma shared his 12-digit Aadhaar number on Twitter and challenged the ethical hacker, Elliot Alderson to show that how mere knowledge of the number could be misused. Hours later, all his personal details were put out on the public domain.
- UIDAI stirred a controversy when it announced its plan to set up a social media wing to "neutralise negative sentiments" in relation to Aadhaar. It said that the private agency would monitor online conversations relating to Aadhaar."
- The Supreme Court asked UIDAI why it needed to collect 'metadata' of personal transactions of citizens which go for Aadhaar authentication to avail services and benefits.
- The biometric mixes dragged UIDAI into yet another controversy. UIDAI officials had once agreed that around 1 to 1.5 per cent, enrolments of nearly made in the last seven years have “mixed biometrics” - around six to nine lakh Aadhaar numbers in Karnataka and around 1.3 to 1.9 crore all over India.
- Cybersecurity researcher Kodali Srinivas flagged the leak of Adhaar details of 48,570 student volunteers’ in the Swachh Andhra Pradesh website. The affected students were volunteering to conduct #Swachh Bharat surveys in their localities.
