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EPISODE – C
TOPIC: Don’t compromise on privacy
BLOG: The Hindu
DEALS WITH: Indian Affairs
GENRE: Editorial

The Aadhaar Bill, which the government introduced in the Lok Sabha last week, has not come a day too soon. More than six years have passed since the first attempt was made to give legal validity to Aadhaar, an ambitious project that seeks to provide unique identification numbers to each individual in a country of over a billion people, collecting demographic (The demographics of a place or society are the statistics relating to the people who live there) and biometric information in the process. And through these years, amid many legal and political challenges and a change in government, over 98 crore numbers have been issued. The stated idea of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, is to provide for “efficient, transparent, and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services”. This, along with a clause that says the unique numbers will not be considered as proof of citizenship, is welcome. And yet, the process of legislating for Aadhaar has not been wholly reassuring (If you reassure someone, you say or do things to make them stop worrying about something). The Bill has attracted immediate criticism for being introduced as a money bill, by virtue of which it does not require approval of the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP-led government does not have the numbers to ensure its passage. Bypassing (If you bypass someone or something that you would normally have to get involved with, you ignore them, often because you want to achieve something more quickly) the Upper House’s vote does give the Bill an easy route to becoming law. The question is, given that Aadhaar was a signature project of the Congress-led UPA, could not the government have made the effort to reach out to lawmakers across the board on such a crucial, bipartisan (Bipartisan means concerning or involving two different political parties or groups) issue?

Wider political consensus and scrutiny are vital. Section 7 of the Bill, for instance, makes proof of Aadhaar necessary for “receipt of certain subsidies, benefits and services”. This must be read in the backdrop of a Supreme Court ruling that said Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory. A key concern over the collection of personal information on this scale is data protection. There are provisions in this Bill that seem to address the concern, including one that prohibits any official from revealing information in the data repository to anyone.

But the exceptions cause unease. Two provisions are particularly troubling. The first is Section 29(4), by which no Aadhaar number or biometric information will be made public “except for the purposes as may be specified by regulations”. The second, which experts have already flagged, is Section(33), under which the inbuilt confidentiality clauses will not stand when it concerns national security. The only reassurance could be that in such cases the direction has to come from an official who is not below the rank of a Joint Secretary to the government. Nonetheless, without robust (Someone or something that is robust is very strong or healthy) laws to protect their data, citizens would be rendered (If you render someone help or service, you help them) vulnerable. It is not about just snooping (If someone snoops around a place, they secretly look around it in order to find out things). It is also being said that in order to be useful and effective, Aadhaar data might have to be used alongside other databases. That could trigger further privacy questions. There is little doubt that India needs to streamline the way it delivers benefits, and to empower citizens with a basic identification document. But this cannot be done without ensuring the strictest protection of privacy.

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TEST YOUR SKILLS

SYNONYM

ROBUST
a) Live
b) Unstable
c) Lifty
d) Small

SNOOP
a) Pry
b) Gumshoe
c) Sleuth
d) Any of the above

BIPARTISAN
a) Many
b) Dual
c) Forms
d) None

DEMOGRAPHIC
a) Numerical
b) Land
c) Boundary
d) Any of the above

REASSURE
a) Hurt
b) Upset
c) Console
d) Trouble

With this we have just completed our 100th episode (in roman ‘C’). How was the journey so far? and if you have any suggestion, comment or compliment regarding this, Please let us know.

Newspaper’s Editorials covered by us (from the 1st episode to 100th episode):

1. The Washington Post
2. The Hindu
3. The Indian Express
4. The New York Times
5. The New Indian Express
6. TOI Blogs
7. The Guardian
8. The Dawn
9. Scroll
10. The Quartz and many.

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