Aadhar will pass Supreme Court's privacy framework: Nilekani

India is on a “very good wicket” on privacy in this age of digital technology, artitect of the Aadhaar scheme Nandan Nilekani has said, expressing confidence that the government’s unique-identity number plan will be able to successfully pass the test of privacy.

Aadhaar card scheme, which has enrolled more than 1 billion people, was launched by the previous UPA government and has been supported by the current government.

Addressing an audience at an event organised by the Center for Global Development on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Nilekani said: “I think India is on a very good wicket on privacy“.

Aadhar scrutiny

Thanks to Aadhaar, many activists went to the Supreme Court and they claimed that it was a privacy violation, said the 62-year-old non-executive Chairman of Infosys.

That challenge by activists, he said, led to even more existential question in India: is privacy a fundamental right at all.

The question went to a nine-judge Supreme Court bench and they gave “what I call one of the best judgements” in the Supreme Court history, he said, responding to a question on privacy and Aadhaar card.

“And they (judges) said, yes privacy is a fundamental right. However, the State can circumscribe that privacy for specific social goals,” he said, adding that they identified national security, prevention of crime prevention, protection of revenue and social welfare benefits as the four reasons.

“The court laid down an excellent framework. And at the same time they said that technology and digital technology are key enablers for social progress and innovation, the architect of Aadhar card said.”

Now that the judges have laid a framework, there will be a second bench of the court, which will test whether Aadhaar meets that framework.

“We’re very confident that it will,” Nilekani said.

Clarity in policies

Responding to a question, Nilekani said that from a policy perspective “it has to be clear” that nobody should be denied an entitlement due to lack of access to technology.

A good system will obviously have the ability to save if there’s no connectivity or environment does not work, one should give the overriding capability to the service provider. So, it is important to make sure that technology does not come as a hurdle in providing benefits to people.

A combination of well-designed override with fraud analytics can solve these issues. According to Nilekani, there are many challenges that require a platform thinking as a public good.

“If a particular service or product is offered through a commercial platform that’s great...but there is a problem that only can be solved with societal platform for the public good. That is unavoidable,” he said.

Societal platforms, he said, is not about excluding market participants. Societal platforms, he argued, creates the level-playing field and then market participants can operate on that.

It’s entirely possible that the entire digital payments that are provided by a combination of public financial institutions and private banks.

COMMENT NOW