Congress: Govt let private firms access citizens’ data

While welcoming the Supreme Court’s ruling on Aadhaar, the Congress hit out at the Narendra Modi government for allowing private companies to access the biometric identity system that contains personal details of citizens.

The main opposition party has also decided to move the top courtfor greater clarity on the Lok Sabha Speaker’s privilege to qualify legislation as Money Bill.

Congress MP Kapil Sibal said there was no way of retrieving biometric data used by private players. It had caused “immeasurable” harm to the citizens.

“Who will pay for this? Will the Prime Minister pay for it? Will the Finance Minister pay for it? Will any other ministers have been defending this law day in and day out pay for it?” Sibal asked.

The Congress said it had been clear that the passage of the law violates both the fundamental right to privacy and is a gross abuse of the Speaker’s powers to qualify a Bill as a Money Bill.

He said the BJP-led Centre used Aadhaar to forcibly collect data from the public and harvest it for the purposes of surveillance.

“That is why this government, barely a year ago argued vehemently and unsuccessfully against a fundamental right to privacy,” Sibal claimed.

Cong backs Chandrachud

The party also backed Justice DY Chandrachud’s minority judgment that the Aadhaar law is a “fraud on the Constitution”. “...they classified it as a Money Bill to avoid voting in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP did not have a majority. The BJP knew the Congress would never approve a draconian and invasive version of its project. While we respect the Court’s decision on this point, we are inclined to agree with Justice Chandrachud on the fact that the Act, per se, is an illegality,” Sibal said.

Sibal said fingerprints cannot be the mode to identify lakhs of people whose hands are callused from hard work. For such people, other identities must be considered for the disbursement of welfare schemes, he said.

Aadhaar harms poor: CPI(M)

The CPI(M) said it had always maintained that Aadhaar should not be mandatory for any welfare scheme.

The party claimed lakhs of poor were being denied universal rights for not having Aadhaar.

“This renders vulnerable crores of poor people whose existence is dependent upon the accessibility to welfare schemes. Unfortunately, the majority judgment of the Supreme Court continues to maintain Aadhaar as mandatory,” a statement from the party’s Politburo said.

It said the Supreme Court’s “so-called safeguards” will prove ineffective. “The benefits for the poor and marginalised sections can only be reached if Aadhaar is explicitly made non-mandatory. The CPI(M) will continue its struggle on this score.” The party said denying access to private companies may provide some protection to right to privacy, but the Centre had already privatised and outsourced many government responsibilities to private enterprises.

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