The right to privacy hearing in the Supreme Court

[The Outsider]

It's a crucial day today with regards to the fundamental rights of Indians. This government is taking every step it can to impose fascism and curtail civil rights of its citizens, going to the extent of arguing in the Supreme Court that Indians have no fundamental right to privacy. And given the jocular judgments that our courts have been giving historically and more so lately, it's not a given that the right to privacy will be upheld as a fundamental right.

 

Repercussions of the judgment are going to be profound, specially in the context of how far Aadhaar will be imposed in the lives of citizens. There have already been government orders to link Aadhaar to PAN, bank accounts, cell phones. If this case is decided in favor of the government, floodgates might open regarding making Aadhaar mandatory in practically every walk of your life and all linked together. It's an extremely disturbing possible future scenario. This is the same government which is arguing that names of NPA defaulters should not be disclosed because their reputations can suffer harm. But they want total control and visibility into the lives of ordinary citizens. 

 

Hopefully, the nine judge bench will decide that the right to privacy is a fundamental right and as a consequence this nonsense of having a single bio-metric identification linked to all facets of the lives of citizens can be curtailed. 

[mishra]

I thought people said demonetisation was just a Jumla and BJP isnt serious about corruption

If you have nothing to hide why fear? Aadhar card is not scrutinizing your daily life. It is just scrutinizing your financial statements. Didnt people provide their signatures and photographs for pan, bank accounts and other financial vehicles. Why not just provide adhar card instead?

 

Fact is, its now people realising that with Aadhar card, Government has got everyone by their balls.

Edited July 19, 2017 by mishra

[gattaca]

Op is ok proving his ssn in US while opening bank account but not happy doing that in india

Edited July 19, 2017 by gattaca

[BeautifulGame]

If it's simply about Aadhaar issue then yes need Aadhaar linking .

 

Only 1-2 % of Indians pay tax.This is beyond pathetic .Even that is an understatement.

 

Only solution is linking of Aadhaar cards with bank accounts .

 

 

[BeautifulGame]

http://m.timesofindia.com/india/right-to-privacy-can-never-be-an-absolute-entitlement-sc/articleshow/59674103.cms

[Haarkarjeetgaye]

as long as the government also has an ITIN and Aadhar card, with transparent transactions

[Haarkarjeetgaye]

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/nandan-nilekani-warns-of-digital-colonisation-ahead-of-aadhaar-hearing-117071900021_1.html

 

 

[The Outsider]

The hearing is broader than Aadhaar - it's whether right to privacy is a fundamental right or not. It's not explicitly mentioned in the constitution, but the argument being made is that Articles 14, 19, and 21 taken together implicitly grant a right to privacy much like the Supreme Court in the US ruled that the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th amendments implicitly do so. In most other democracies, it is mentioned explicitly in the constitution. 

 

The 'what do you have to hide' is actually the dumbest arguments against it. Basic tenets of civil rights and democracy imply that a person should be able to protect his information on a need to know basis. The onus must lie on the government or other agencies to be able to demonstrate that they have reasonable grounds to demand such information from an individual. That's the principle behind a search warrant. People generally don't go around having sex in front of their parents when they are married and have 'nothing to hide'

 

Now coming to Aadhaar, firstly it's important to debunk the equivalence to the US SSN. SSN is more equivalent to a PAN card or maybe a PAN card and Ration card combined. There are no bio-metrics associated in a SSN and SSN is not a universal ID seeded with all facets of an individual's life, which is what Aadhaar is being pushed as now. The legal framework around SSN is much stronger, while the Aadhaar act is draconian in its scope vesting the government with dangerous powers to the extent that an individual cannot file a FIR for misuse of his Aadhaar. All the person can do is complain to UIDAI, which is the organization with the authority to file a FIR in case of misuse. Not a single western democracy has an Aadhaar like idenitfication because of the huge privacy and civil rights concern associated with it. For example, what happens if your bio-metrics are stolen and misused (and fingerprints are easy to steal and replicate)? You cannot change your fingerprints like you can change your password after some account of yours has been hacked.

 

Aadhaar and by implication an individual's bio-metrics are going to be seeded with all possible government and private databases. Remember, Aadhaar is not really a physical card - it's a number-bio-metric key. A fraudster doesn't need to be in possession of any physical entity to impersonate you - all he needs are your fingerprints. Millions of Aadhaar numbers associated with other personal identification information have already been leaked or put out on government sites. 

 

Because Aadhaar will be seeded to all aspects of your life - your university degree, cell phone, rail tickets, air travel - information which is compartmentalized today and only you or someone with a proper warrant can put together can be pieced together by anyone in the government. The possibility of misuse in a corrupt country like India is enormous. Someone can potentially ask a corrupt government employee to remove the link between you and your university degree - you are suddenly not an engineer anymore because next time someone tries to authenticate your degree using your fingerprints it won't work. 

 

And all of the above is assuming a perfect authentication system. I haven't even mentioned the technology failures that happen in authentication everyday, the possibility of data breaches etc.

[The Outsider]

The Supreme Court did rule that right to privacy is a fundamental right. Some of the euphoria is overboard, but it's an important judgment nonetheless. It can form the basis for challenging Aadhaar, 377, beef ban, and the draconian anti-conversion laws. With the right accepted as fundamental, the first few cases will be crucial to outline the reasonable restrictions associated with it. The reasonable restrictions bit isn't surprising as it is something associated with all fundamental rights. It's about how far we use it to become a liberal society or continue our gravitation towards a cow p!ss drinking one.

 

Regardless of what happens later, never forget this government argued in the court that you should not have a right to privacy and citizens should not have a right over their bodies. At least for the moment, the acceleration into fascism has been halted to an extent. 

[mishra]

^ Lol not sure about beef ban can come under fundamental right, but offcourse it gives some hope to get legitimatic rights to LGBT which most religions (specially minorities which are very vocal) claim anti religious in "Secular Democracy"