Concern Of Aadhaar Data Protection By Government

One of the very important matters of concern is that whether government has taken adequate measures to protect the data collected for Aadhaar purpose or not. Whether the government is responsible and liable for data leakage or any other authority, is very important to determine. The Chapters VI and VII of Aadhaar Act, 2016 deal with securing of important data and also with the offences and penalties in case of breach of secured data. The UIDAI does implement appropriate organisational and technical security measures in case to ensure that personal information is in proper control and possession of authority and is absolutely secured against any type of use, access or disclosure which is not permitted under Act or regulations thereunder, and against any accidental or data intentional destruction, or loss or damage.

Under Sec. 38 of Aadhaar Act, provisions for penalty for unauthorized access of its database like, downloading, hacking, copying, introducing any virus, extracting, or other type of computer contamination, damaging, etc. have been duly provided. The government in Sec. 28 obliges all authorities and the private agencies that have been appointed for purpose to have technical and organisational security measures for protection of information. Furthermore, the government in same section prevents the authorities to revel any information collected by them.It is also specified in Sec. 29, that none of the Biometric information that is collected under the Act, shall be subjected to sharing irrespective of any reason, or is to be utilised for any purposes other than the purpose prescribed under the Act. There are many other provisions stating that the Act shall assist the government to create enough provisions to assure the safety of data collected. But sources on the other hand blame the authorities for not maintaining the data collected for purpose it was meant to be used. Although, the Aadhaar Act, 2016 had laid down several penal provisions for some offences relating to the leakage of data, but the Act fails to deliver adequate security to information it collects which directly violates the Right to Privacy.

The Biometric copies collected by Government may construct several other problems like not matching of fingerprints or non-recognition of iris scans and such failure of technology will certainly give citizens the reasons to blame the authority because the authority is one relying completely upon it. There would always be a possibility of a false match of biometrics or no match at all. Even scientists and expects agree on this.

Over the last years, there have been multi fold instances of data leaking online even from the governmental websites. One of the case which was when an RTI application pushed the UIDAI to disclose the fact for about 210 government websites made personal details of people reveal publically on the internet with their Aadhaar. This report revealed out that personal information was removed from all websites but it also did not inform about the timings of the leak of the data. The issue was so excessive that even a simple google search revealed many databases along with their demographic data including their Aadhaar card numbers, their names, names of parents, mobile number, PAN number, religion, body marks.