Prof. Shamnad Basheer Moves Delhi HC Against Aadhaar Data Leak; Demands Exemplary Damages [Read Petition]

IP Academic Prof. Shamnad Basheer has filed a Petition before the Delhi High Court alleging a violation of the fundamental right to privacy as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution and as affirmed in Justice KS Puttaswamy v Union of India due to Aadhaar data breaches.When the Petition came up before the Delhi High Court on Friday, the Bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Chandrashekhar opined that it would wait for the outcome of the petition on Aadhaar pending before the Supreme Court before taking this one up.It then posted the matter for 21 August, with the liberty to the Petitioner to approach the Bench before this date should any emergency or urgency arise.IDIA Continues Its Crusade; Unleashes New Public Interest InitiativeProf. Basheer was represented pro-bono by leading criminal lawyer Siddharth Aggarwal, who was briefed by lawyers, Rupali Samuel, Jhanvi Dubey and Sidddharth Sajita. UIDIA was represented by counsel Zoheb Hossain.The petition was filed as part of the latest IDIA initiative on promoting public interest lawyering (PPIL), an initiative meant to raise public interest causes, and in the process, train IDIA scholars and volunteers through clinical legal education.The IDIA team helping on this petition included Public interest fellow, Balu Nair, along with IDIA volunteers Anmol Malhotra, Ankit Yadav, Shilpa Prasad, Vinoothna Vinjam and IDIA scholar Donnie Ashok.Continuous compromise of security of Aadhaar dataThe petition begins with an "Ode to Aadhaar":Grass seemed greener on the Aadhaar sideSeduced by its spell, I got taken for a rideLinking my card, not once but twiceLulled by its lore and some lies But soon I foundThat Aadhaar was unsoundPrivacy breaches and bunglings galoreData pirates so desperate to score My unique ID is now up in the airOpen to all, both foul and fairYet the “authority” insists that all is wellLink some more…and we’ll all be swell! To our courts therefore, I now do turnFor privacy, justice, and a little less burnAddressing all Aadhaar card holders as Aadhaaris, the Petition goes on to trace the journey of how Aadhaar was conceptualized as a voluntary scheme but was gradually morphed into a near compulsory mandate, with forced linkages to a slew of essential services, including banking services, filing of tax returns and cell phone subscriptions. It then asserts that with Aadhar being all-pervasive, the contemporaneous privacy concerns have also risen.The petition clarifies that the Petition does not intend to challenge the constitutional validity of the Aadhar Act, but only seeks to "establish that the Respondents continue to compromise the security of Aadhaar data through their negligent acts/omissions and consequently violate the fundamental privacy rights of the Petitioner and that of the public at large". Fear of Aadhaar data being misused for personal gainIn his petition, Prof. Basheer recalls how he obtained an Aadhaar card back in 2015 believing the project to be safe, secure and consent based. Soon after, he also linked his bank account with Aadhaar for the fear of his account being deactivated.However, around the beginning of this year, he was devastated to learn through news reports that the confidentiality of Aadhaar data had been compromised, not once but several times over. For instance, he cites a news report by Tribune wherein Tribune claimed to have “purchased” a service being offered by anonymous sellers over WhatsApp that provided unrestricted access to details for any of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers created in India thus far.The Tribune report had claimed, "It took just Rs 500, paid through PayTM, and 10 minutes in which an “agent” of the group running the racket created a “gateway” for this correspondent and gave a login ID and password. Lo and behold, you could enter any Aadhaar number in the portal, and instantly get all particulars that an individual may have submitted to the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India), including name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email.What is more, The Tribune team paid another Rs 300, for which the agent provided “software” that could facilitate the printing of the Aadhaar card after entering the Aadhaar number of any individual."Listing down various other illustrative examples demonstrating such breach of Aadhaar data, he now submits, "He was particularly distressed to note that most of these breaches pertained to personal identity data maintained with the Central Identities Data Repository, a centralized database containing all information collected from Aadhaar applicants by Respondent No.1 and its various affiliates/partners, including sensitive personal information such as biometric data.The Petitioner fears that his valuable data (as also that of countless other Aadhaaris) is in the illegal possession of unauthorized third parties, who can, at any time, misuse it for their own personal gain. This fear is not just a theoretical one, but one...

Prof. Shamnad Basheer Moves Delhi HC Against Aadhaar Data Leak; Demands Exemplary Damages [Read Petition]

Apoorva Mandhani

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