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There should be a healthy balance between openness, availability, utilisation and privacy of data to promote innovation, said the Minister for Electronics and IT and Law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Speaking at the Financial Inclusion Summit 2018 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Saturday, Prasad said while data privacy is important, it cannot kill innovation, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court recently.
Prasad said, “Every Indian must own data. However, there should be a healthy balance between openness, availability, utilisation and privacy of data.”
Talking about Aadhaar, Prasad said that it has enabled financial inclusion for people. For instance people with Jan Dhan account can seamlessly transact money without middleman, which was not the case before.
Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog, agreed with Prasad and added that without biometric facilitated by Aadhaar, one cannot have paperless financial inclusion. “I’m saying that for financial inclusion, mobile and telephony will play a key role to reach the last mile and make it paperless. Innovation will happen in private sector. Also, Aadhar does not recognise paper. It recognises only biometric. So if India wants to advance, biometric has to be used and privacy law must be brought,” he added.
He said, “If we had a privacy law in India and individual data is secure, the Supreme Court would not have struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act.”
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