Financial Times | By: Various Authors | August 24, 2017:
Unanimous privacy ruling dents government attempts to register country’s 1.3bn people Narendra Modi’s plans to widen the scope of India’s vast biometric identification system have been dealt a blow by judges on the Supreme Court, who have ruled that Indians have a fundamental right to privacy.
The nine judges unanimously ruled on Thursday that the Indian constitution granted citizens this right — a judgment that has far-reaching consequences for the government’s attempts to register the country’s 1.3bn people.
The ruling was triggered by an appeal against the prime minister’s plans to make holding an identification card — known as an Aadhaar card — mandatory for claiming social welfare schemes.
The plans were part of a wider push to make the cards a prerequisite for a range of actions, such as filing tax returns, buying mobile phone sim cards and buying train tickets.
Supporters of the scheme say the Aadhaar card, which works using people’s fingerprints and iris scans, will help fix a range of problems by giving the millions of people who lack birth certificates a portable official identification.
This will enable them to open bank accounts, take out loans and claim benefits such as fuel subsidies that are currently being siphoned off by corrupt officials.
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