The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Centre seeking its response to a petition filed by legal scholar Shamnad Basheer demanding “exemplary damages” as compensation for the repeated leaks of Aadhaar data. According to Basheer, a bench of Justices Ravindra Bhat and Anu Malhotra gave the Centre and the Unique Identification Authority of India, the body that oversees Aadhaar, six weeks to respond to his plea that demands compensation and the option to opt out of the 12-digit unique identification platform.
In his petition, filed in May, Basheer, the founder of the SpicyIP website and a professor of law, explained how he got an Aadhaar in 2015 believing it to be safe and secure and then linked it with his bank account. As per the petition, he mentions learning of a number of breaches of Aadhaar data, such as the Tribune story in which all demographic information connected to an Aadhaar number was available for a small price.
“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,” the petition said. While insisting that his petition does not seek to challenge Aadhaar’s constitutional validity – since the Supreme Court has already reserved its judgement on a number of petitions in connection with that – it does seek 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.”
The petition begins with a poem, an ‘Ode to Aadhaar.’
Grass seemed greener on the Aadhaar side
Seduced by its spell, I got taken for a ride
Linking my card, not once but twice
Lulled by its lore and some liesBut soon I found
That Aadhaar was unsound
Privacy breaches and bunglings galore
Data pirates so desperate to scoreMy unique ID is now up in the air
Open to all, both foul and fair
Yet the “authority” insists that all is well
Link some more…and we’ll all be swell!To our courts therefore, I now do turn
For privacy, justice, and a little less burn
Among other things, the petition points out that Basheer, as a Muslim, is particularly vulnerable “given that in today’s post truth world, almost all Muslims are seen as terrorists and interrogated as such at various international airports and the like, the risk of harms from a data breach and consequent identity theft or the tampering with personal data is significantly more magnified. Secondly, given the present political climate in the country for minorities and the growing patriotic fervor of those committed to purging the country of its plural ethos, the Petitioner fears that unrestrained access to his data could have potentially fatal implications”.
The petition asks for a number of things, including “exemplary damages” to deter the UIDAI and Centre from future negligent behaviour, permission to opt out of the Aadhaar system, an independent unit to investigate and audit all privacy breaches and the security system underpinning Aadhaar and the appointment of a neutral ombudsman to address all concerns related to violations of the Aadhaar Act.
According to Basheer, the case will now come up again on November 19.
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