The Pangs of Protecting Privacy

Is “Privacy” a fundamental right? The Supreme Court is currently seized of the matter with petitioners ranged against the govt. that contents that it is not. The judgement expected end Aug 2017 shall have an epochal impact on posterity.

While the honourable Supreme Court, in Oct 2015, ruled that a citizen cannot be compelled to have Aadhar as a necessary condition to avail centrally sponsored welfare schemes, it has found no fault, in Mar 2017, with the government’s choice – vide Aadhar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 - to make Aadhar mandatory for “non-welfare” activities like opening a bank account or filing Income Tax returns. The Supreme Court order of August 11, 2015 restricting Aadhar use to only PDS, Kerosene & LPG was later amended to include MNREGS,  National Social Assistance Programme pensions (old age, widow and disability pensions), employee provident fund (EPF) and the Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)

 Advantages of Aadhar Linkage

There is no denying that DBT (Direct Benefit Transfers) has brought in greater efficiency in public spending & reduced corruption by weeding out bogus beneficiaries; the govt. has attributed Rs Rs 49560 crore in savings during the period 2014-16 vide this initiative & to buttress its argument quotes a World Bank 2016 report that claims that Aadhar if extended to all social welfare programs has the potential to create a saving of $11 billion. 

Linking PAN to Aadhar could help identify tax evaders too. In a country where less than 4% of the population pay Income tax – including TDS – a shift to digital transfers vide UPI (Unique Payment Interface) would add a digital footprint to the metadata providing an opportunity to shift to an arguable alternative consumption tax model.

A national criminal database based on Aadhar could help prevent crimes of the Uber kind where an Uber driver - a noted offender in UP - came to Delhi, got a driver’s license & molested a passenger. Going forward there is a case for linking Aadhar to the voter ID cards to eliminate bogus voters to bring about a much needed clean-up of the much maligned electoral process. 

However, other concerns remain.

The Emergence of a “Big Brother” State & “Data Oligarchs”

When Aadhar project was initiated in 2009, under Nandan Nilakeni, as a deliberate policy, to address privacy concerns, only 5 data points were collected from all individuals: Name; Address; Date of birth & Biometrics – iris scan & finger prints. The govt. later extended it to the JAM trilogy – Jan Dhan bank account, Aadhar & Mobile – & now to PAN cards thereby adding financial details to the data master. The National Academic Depository (NAD) containing educational records connected to Aadhar adds another data point.  If credit & medical records too are linked to Aadhar the enormity of information at the govt. hands is staggering, liable to be misused for political purposes in the absence of adequate checks & balances. An Orwellian “Big Brother” surveillance state - hiding under the veneer of security threats - is a distinct possibility.

The creation of “Data oligarchs” is also a cause for concern. Telcos, ordered by GOI to authenticate customers using aadhar can profile their customers based on an individual’s music, movies, videos, news consumption & chat topics of interest; running their own payment gateways or by using the UPI (Unique Payment Interface) they would track digital payments too.  Telcos thus do not run a dumb pipe any longer. Likewise, Google collects metadata based on an individual’s search interests & mail contents while Facebook collects demographics, geographics & psychographics of its users; GPS activation makes physical tracking easy. Since citizens are not aware of the nitty gritties & sign off privacy in their dealing with social networks, Telcos et al, due to ignorance, it is the government’s bounden duty to legislate norms for the same.

Breaches Galore

Such a rich database if it falls into wrong hands could lead to extortion calls leading to a security nightmare. 

Recent events do not inspire confidence on data security. A probe by NPCI (national Payments corporation of India) found a malware-induced security breach in the systems of Hitachi Payment Services -  which provides ATMs, point of sale and other services in India.- during the period May-Aug 2016,  effecting 3.2 million debit cards that forced banks to either issue new cards or request customers to change their PINs. Jio customer database of 10 crore customers along with Aadhar nos. was posted on the website magicapk.com, As per a Mint report, on 25 April, many government departments, including the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security, and the Kerala government’s pension department, had published Aadhar numbers of beneficiaries of the schemes. On 1 May, Bengaluru-based think tank Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) reported that 135 million Aadhar nos were made public by a Central government ministry and a state government. This calls for stronger measures on data security & penalty on violators.

Conclusion

Since India is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1979, a “privacy law” is in order. The UN General Assembly has appointed a Special Rapporteur for privacy since they recognised privacy as a global concern, especially in the digital age. The EU had gone far by allowing freedom to an individual to decide on deleting their digital footprint; it allows the freedom to be " left alone" - to remain anonymous.

A distinction though has to be made between “Privacy” vis a vis “Data Protection”; while data protection has to be absolute, privacy can be subjected to reasonable restrictions the contours of which should be strictly defined by law; going forward surveillance should be allowed subject only to court approved orders & new issues on privacy raised due to the advances of technology or a perverted minds judged on a case to case basis