#Aadhaar final hearing- Day 13: Bench reassembles in #SC. Gopal Subramaniam resumes his arguments.
GS: Refers to article 243G(b) of Constitution. Says that some level of implementation is clear in the said provision.
GS: Says that Puttaswamy judgment talks about identifying eligible recipients. But the present act does not identify eligible recipients, instead it provides proof of identity.
GS: Says that sans criminality or any offence being committed, people cannot be asked to give their biometrics. Says that biometric authentication was considered only in the case of commission of crime.
Points out Selvi case which said that taking of fingerprints is invasion.
GS: Now moves on to Indian case laws. Refers to the launching of electoral rolls for purification-linking it with Aadhaar. Says that a 3 Judge Bench of the same court had issued a note, post which the programme was suspended.
GS: Submits that Aadhaar bank linking is for money laundering but NPCI is making the database available to private parties. Says that anyone can get a profile of an individual from the State Resident Data Hubs. Says there's no limitation on what info can be stored in SRDH
Rakesh Dwivedi: says that SDRH were established under MoU under the UPA regime. Claims that after the act was enacted, the data was destroyed.
GS: Reads out the intervention application in which the applicants say that their business models required Aadhaar to function.
DYC J. asks for credible documents to show to what extent the private parties had access to the database...
... asks can the private parties gain access to the biometric information. As Section 57 of the Act does not provide provision for the same.
GS: Says that the authentication agents are not govt. agents. They're private players. Says that Aadhaar bridge is an invitation to business which would be done through this agent.
DYC J. points out that Section 57 only allows authentication by the private parties. Then how do they get access to the data.
GS: Says that due to seeding of Aadhaar with multiple databases, the entity can gain access to the profile of the individuals.
Tweets are erratic in nature due to network problems here. Please bear with us.
GS: Now refers to the definitions in the Act- 'Aadhaar number holder', 'biometric information', 'core biometric information'.
DYC J: Asks what is biological attribute. Could DNA be biological attribute?
GS replies in affirmative.DYC J. says that the definition is open-ended then
GS: Reads more definitions. Reads to Section 3 on enrollment. Reads on section 4.
GS: Refers to the enrollment regulations. Says that the burden of updating the information in CIDR is on the individuals.
DYC J. Says that the govt. can't be expected to keep a track of all the changes.
GS replies that demographic is another thing, but how will an individual...
...get to know that she's due for biometric updation?
Khanwilkar J says that in case of an authentication failure, the person can go for updation.
GS points out that an authentication failure is viewed as the person being a ghost, fake nowadays.
GS now moves to Section 31 on alteration of demographic or biometric information. Points out that incase the biometric info is lost or changes subsequently, the individual will have to request UIDAI to make alterations in his records.
Bench rises for lunch. Hearing to resume at 2:30 pm.
Hearing resumes post lunch.
GS: Goes through enrollment regulations 16, 17, 18, 19.
GS: Says that the words of regulation 28, which deals with the security of the info, are in the nature of assurance and not emphatic.
GS: Says that reg 27 to 29 are very poor safeguards. Says that the moment there is an authentication failure, there's an assumption that the biometrics were captured validly at the time of enrollment and now the person is trying to duplicate.
GS: Points out the cases in which Aadhaar shall be deactivated. Says that there is no procedural or substantive reasonableness being followed by the authority.
GS: Says that the architecture of this Act is completely deleterious to human dignity.
GS: Reads section 33 on disclosure of information in certain cases pursuant to court order. Points out that the individual will not be given opportunity of hearing. Instead the authority will be given the opportunity.
GS: Goes back to Section 7, impresses upon the wordings used- require, undergo, furnish proof- says they impose a condition.
Further says that whether mobile phones, banks, income tax get covered under this section. Says that it has gained creeping coverage.
GS: Says that section 7 doesn't actually prescribe that there must be real recipient of the benefits.
Says Section 4(3) proves the Act is for universal coverage and thus, is ultra vires of Constitution.
GS: Summarises his points. Says that in case authentication fails, the entitlements may be annulled, resulting in permanent disablement.
GS: Says that due to technology, the possibilities of profiling are very strong.
GS: Hands over the compendium and reads on big data and metadata.
Remarks that liberty cannot be measured in coffee-spoons.
GS: Reads about the nature of big data's analytics tools and it's unpredictability.
GS: Says that the algorithms are unpredictable in nature. Says UIDAI is not the algorithm writer. What guarantees do we have then?
GS: With big data, we can get the details of the individuals, especially if combined with other data sets. It can even give geographical data of the individuals.
GS says that in the absence of a data protection law, the injury or vulnerability is heightened. No assurance can lessen that.
GS: Says that the data retention should also follow reasonable and substantive reasonableness. It cannot be for all the people. That's very broad.
GS: Says that there's an uncertainty associated with biometric systems. They're probabilistic in nature. There is a risk of error.
GS: Says that biometrics are untrusted systems.
Refers to Wilson affidavit.
Talks about babies being enrolled into Aadhaar. Says we shouldn't ever go down that way.
GS: Hands over a module on exclusions due to Aadhaar.
Says that in Jharkhand, exclusion is as high as 49%.
GS: Reads a letter of a CSC, an agency during the enrollments, with which MoU was ended due to corruption and non-observace of procedure.
Further refers to several affidavits from excluded people.
GS: Refers to the L1 contracts. Says it is very clear that the foreign entity has total control over the algorithm. 2. Data is with L1 even though UIDAI may have ownership. 3. It can subject it to such use, analysis as may be required.
GS: Refers to the interim orders of the SC. Says everyone including the govt. is bound by the orders of the court. But, after 2016 Act, the govt. did not obey those orders.
GS: There has been a continuous violation. Petititioners have brought to the notice of the Court continuously. Now in 2018 we have starvation deaths.
COURT MUST GRANT EXEMPLARY DAMAGES AND COMPENSATION TO THOSE WHO LOST LIVES OR OTHERWISE EXCLUDED.
Kindly ignore Caps.
GS: Fundamental freedoms can only be protected by the Courts. Lots of grounds have been covered by the judgments.
Requests the court to extend the deadlines as had been mentioned in its order dated 15th December, 2017 since the matter is still pending.
GS concludes his arguments.
Senior Advocate Arvind Datar to commence his arguments in W.P. 1017/2017. Says he has 7 basic points to cover.
CJI recommends that he submit a note on points to be covered and then elaborate on those 6th March onwards.
Court rises for the day. Hearing to resume on Tuesday, 6th March, 2018.
Correction: The petition no. is W.P. (C) No. 1014/2017.
Thanks to @godisays for pointing out.
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#AadhaarVerdict
There are three judgements. One by J. Sikri. CJI and J. Khanwilkar concur with him.
Other two judgments are by J. Chandrachud and J. Bhushan.
J. Sikri: It is better to be unique than the best. Being unique is the basis of Aadhaar. Talks about how Aadhaar is the most talked about identification system in the world.
J. Sikri reads out the summary of the arguments made by the petitioners and the respondents.
Out of the 5 judges who heard the challenge to #Section377, four will be giving separate opinions - CJI Misra, J. Nariman, J. Chandrachud and J. Indu Malhotra. J. Khanwilkar has concurred with one of the opinions.
Since there will be 4 judgments, we advise everyone following our tweets to not come to a conclusion till all 4 judges have given their opinions. We will be live tweeting as the judgments are delivered #Section377
#Section377 CJI - Khanwilakr have concurred. CJI has started - Sans identity the name only remains a plain factor. Emphasis is laid on the identity of a person. The sustenance of identity is the pillar of life.
The policy-makers must consider how their domestic law and policy will fit into that global context. The report does not address this question at all.
Govt. should not only be seeking to harmonise Indian data protection law with GDPR in order to maximise Indian firms access to the global data economy, it should be directly engaged with the European Commission in seeking mutual opportunities to define Euro-Indian global regime
Workshop Session 1, Day 1 #APrIGF2018: Pacific ICT Plenary Challenge and Opportunities of Connectivity in Small Island states, now begins.
The first panelist is Prime Minister of Vanuatu, he starts by highlighting the challenges and experience s of Vanuatu.#APrIGF2018
Firstly, he mentioned about the Geo graphical challenges of Vanuatu. Telecom service providers often face issues due to lack of land. Then he highlighted the government's interest in collaborating with TSPs. #APrIGF2018
Orientation session at #APrIGF2018, #VintCerf: Internet is not useful if it doesn't work. Resilience is an imp. aspect of the Internet. As the global warming continues, water rise continues there rises concerns for cable landings. #internetsociety
#VintCerf continues to discuss fragile aspects of digital content. He asks the audience if the data they store in whichever form, cloud/hard disk. Will it continue to exist at the same place after 50years? #APrIGF2018
#VintCerf cites an example of how with technological advancement his floppy disks have been rendered useless. And in this light, he urges the tech community to take care of how and where we document our content. #APrIGF2018
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is still asking for mandatory quoting of #Aadhaar in the DIR-3 KYC form for the purpose of updating KYC details of anyone who has been allotted a Director Identification Number(DIN) on or before March 31, 2018.
The form does not show #Aadhaar as a mandatory field but at the time of submission, it gives an error message if the field is left empty. mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/C… .
Also, the FAQs related to it instructs that quoting #Aadhaar is mandatory for citizens of India.