'ECI Holds Voters' Data In Trust, Entitled To Protect Privacy' : Supreme Court On Plea For Machine-Readable Electoral Rolls

In yesterday's SIR hearing, the Supreme Court orally expressed reservations about making the voters list available in machine-readable format, saying that it might compromise voters' privacy.The Court observed that the Election Commission of India holds voters' data in trust and is entitled to adopt layers of privacy to ensure that the data remains protected. The Court suggested to the ECI if the data can be password-protected so that an individual can easily access it while preventing unauthorised access by other parties.A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Bagchi was considering a bunch of petitions challenging ECI's special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, West Bengal, etc.Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms, submitted that the NGO has filed an interloctutory application seeking to direct the ECI to supply the 2002 voters' list in a machine-readable format so that individuals can easily search if their parents' names are included in it.It was argued that no prejudice would be caused if the data is made available by ECI in searchable form. Unconvinced, Justice Bagchi flagged privacy concerns about sharing of voters' data in such format.Justice Bagchi referred to the 2018 order in the Kamal Nath case which statedly held that electoral rolls need not be furnished in a machine-readable form. Justice Bagchi said that the question of privacy and data protection is involved, as making the list machine-readable may lead to "data-mining" by third parties. The judge added that the suggestion may be deliberated upon by the parties. "Let's get their (ECI's) response on what kind of dangers it can pose", said Justice Kant."A prejudice is [per se]...data available at large for mining, irrespective of individuals, any agent...have to take into consideration the issues of individual privacy, collective protection of data of Indian citizens. This is not adversarial. It has a polycentric impact. Independent of the rights of a person who is seeking to vote, the data itself is a valuable asset. That the ECI is holding in trust. What you may suggest, and the ECI may consider, that the individual may have a password to access the data. That's how the individual can verify his data from the encrypted database of ECI. The data is valuable asset entrusted to the ECI. So ECI is entitled to have layers of privacy on the data", said Justice Bagchi.On Bhushan mentioning ADR's application seeking inter-alia electoral roll data in machine-readable form, the bench issued notice on the same as well and asked ECI to respond. Particularly, the bench found "good" a suggestion made by ADR that de-duplication software available with ECI be used to tackle multiple entries of one individual in the rolls.The Court sought the ECI's response to the application and posted the matter to November 26.Case Title: Association for Democratic Reforms and Ors. v. Election Commission of India, W.P.(C) No. 640/2025Also from the hearing - RP Act Accepts Aadhaar Card As Identity Proof For Electoral Roll Inclusion; UIDAI's Notification Can't Stop It, Says Supreme Court During Hearing'Good Suggestion' : Supreme Court On Plea To Use De-Duplication Software To Detect Multiple Entries In Voters' ListSupreme Court Seeks ECI's Response On Pleas Challenging SIR In Tamil Nadu & West Bengal; Asks HCs To Not Hear Same Issue

'ECI Holds Voters' Data In Trust, Entitled To Protect Privacy' : Supreme Court On Plea For Machine-Readable Electoral Rolls

Debby Jain

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