There continued unconstitutional dispute over India's digital identity plan weak democracy and legal system. Supreme Court came up with decisions over time. Let us have an analysis of the SC decisions or orders.
On September 26, 2018, the five judges of the Supreme Court
of India addressed the world’s largest digital identity management project
involving the largest number of people in the world-the Unique Identity
Management Program (UID) and Biometric Identification Project of the Federal Government of India (hereinafter referred to as Aadhaar Project )
made a judgment confirming the constitutionality of the Aadhaar Project.
In a 1,448-page judgment document, the Supreme Court of India
ruled to confirm the constitutionality of the Aadhaar project. Among the five
judges who submitted the ruling opinion, Judge SGL fully agreed without
reservations, and three judges submitted separate rulings with reservations and
agreed in principle.
The only dissenting judge, Chandrakud, said the Aadhaar
project was clearly unconstitutional. He believes that the large-scale
collection of national biological data and personal information by the
government violates the privacy of citizens.
The sharing of the citizen
database by the government and commercial institutions is an unconstitutional
act. The national information digitization plan makes it easier for the
government to monitor and monitor the people.
Security is not fully guaranteed.
Chandrakud submitted a ruling that fully expressed his opinion, arguing that
the Aadhaar project should be stopped immediately and completely, and all
related databases should be deleted.
What is the Aadhaar project?
To understand the Aadhaar project, it is necessary to mention
the “UID plan” of the Indian government, that is, the “unique identity
management plan”. India is a country with a population of 1.339 billion
(officially announced figures in 2017).
Due to the lack of government
governance and public service capabilities and the traditional awareness of the
public, there are many loopholes in national identity and household registration
management.
Among them, there are serious problems of unfair distribution and
inefficient distribution, which have been criticized.
Therefore, in 2008, the
Indian government proposed a project named "Aadhaar" to provide each
Indian national with a unique Aadhaar Unique ID consisting of 12 Arabic
numerals.
In September 2010, the Aadhaar project was officially launched and
was implemented by the Indian Identity Authority (UIDAI).
As of February 28,
2017, the project has implemented biometric data collection (including photos,
ten-finger fingerprints, iris scans, etc.) for up to 1.12 billion people in
India, and later added face recognition technology.
Unlike the United States, China, and other countries, the
Indian government promoted the Aadhaar project, which was originally designed
to solve the phenomenon that the government's benefits for the poor are often
impersonated.
At the beginning of the project, the Indian authorities stated
that whether nationals participate in the project should be based on the
principle of voluntariness, and government officials should not forcefully
promote it.
The dual goals that the project promotes are expected to be
achieved.
First, through better data positioning and identification, it is
clear who has the right to receive social benefits according to the law.
Second, through the big data project, the efficiency of welfare distribution
and social relief is improved to save the government. Administrative costs.
Aadhaar Project single ID
After the implementation of the Aadhaar project, the
"single ID" was widely used in various scenarios.
Social welfare
distribution and relief to the poor, including student grants, scholarships,
pensions, unemployment subsidies, food subsidies, medical subsidies, disaster
subsidies, targeted poverty alleviation, agricultural insurance, and special
subsidies for women and children, are all identified through identification
codes. It also entails money distribution.
To a certain extent, the phenomenon of
corruption, inefficiency and inaction prevailing in the Indian public service
and social institutions has been resolved.
It should be said that after promoting the Aadhaar project,
the Indian government has received affirmation from all quarters. Among them,
officials of the World Bank highly affirm the project.
India has a large number
of extremely poor people. The World Bank and the United Nations invest a lot of
relief materials in India every year to implement poverty alleviation plans.
However, due to the low administrative efficiency and the prevalence of
corruption in India, many relief materials have been impersonated and bank
credit fraud has become common practice (the use of the name of the poor to
borrow policy loans).
The Aadhaar project has effectively solved the difficulty
of identification and the cost of credit qualification review. The problem of
staying high.
After the affirmation by the World Bank, Bangladesh, the
Philippines and other countries with similar circumstances are interested in
introducing the project to promote the digital identification of national
identity.
Voices and Doubts on Aadhaar project
With the advancement of the Aadhaar project, there have been
more and more voices of objections and doubts. Some civil rights organizations
in India have criticized the project as seriously damaging citizens ’right to
privacy.
In India, the Constitution does not clearly state that citizens ’right
to privacy is protected by the Constitution. In a constitutional lawsuit of the
Indian Supreme Court on August 24, 2017, the judgment stated that Article 21 of
the Indian Constitution stipulates that “ the right to life and freedom of
citizens" inviolable, born free.
Privacy and Aadhaar
The meaning of freedom includes that
privacy is not infringed by public rights and others. No privacy means
incomplete freedom. Therefore, privacy is also a natural part of citizens’ freedom
and protected by the Constitution.
This landmark case incorporates the right to
privacy into the scope of constitutional protection. That is to say, the
lawsuit on privacy can be filed for unconstitutional review proceedings, which
will be heard by the Supreme Court of India.
Legal experts believe that in the Aadhaar project,
fingerprints, irises, and human faces are collected for the purpose of
identification. These are biological information with specific properties that
cannot be reset like a password, and are "sensitive that should be
specially protected." "Personal information" is part of the
general right to privacy.
Criticism of Aadhaar
Another reason why the Aadhaar project has been criticized is
that it has been declared a voluntary participation plan from the beginning,
but the government completed the identity certification through the Aadhaar
project and promoted the distribution of social welfare and relief plans, so
that rejection of participants means that it may be excluded.
Outside the scope
of the government's welfare system and relief targets, the so-called voluntary
participation is essentially transformed into mandatory.
Aadhaar ID Codes
Secondly, as the project progresses, the Indian Identity
Authority continues to expand the use of ID codes, and requires users to bind
bank account numbers, mobile phone numbers, insurance account numbers and ID
codes to facilitate identity verification and transfer, tax The authority also
associates the identification code with the tax registration number.
With the
expansion of the use of "single ID code", even Internet services,
international travel, marriage registration, etc., will require applicants to
provide identification codes.
In addition to government departments and social
organizations, many private companies also require the service recipients to
provide "single identification codes" for identity registration and
identification when providing services, otherwise they cannot provide services.
Application of Adhaar
The application scenarios of the Aadhaar project are becoming
wider and wider, and more and more government agencies, social organizations,
and commercial companies require the "superior identification code"
to be provided by the manager or the service recipient. But they have not been
able to obtain identification because they did not participate in the Aadhaar
project. The coders will be inaccessible in real life and become
"quarantined and digital refugees" in the Internet age.
UIDAI
As the government's competent authority, the Indian Identity
Authority, in the promotion of the Aadhaar project, focuses on management
rather than service, and bureaucracy is serious.
The specific implementation
department knows that many remote villages in India have no access to
electricity, and there is a lack of Internet use environment.
In the progress of
the project, the promotion of administrative efficiency and the public’s sense
of reform are not taken as work performance evaluation indicators.
Penetration
rate and data stock. Condescending and simple and rough treatment of the poor
ethnic groups who lack the most basic ability to make a living in the digital
age, but ignore the initial "voluntary principle" of the project and
the target function of serving the people.
The critics also pointed out that the Aadhaar project claims
to serve the poor, but in the process of implementation, it has pushed some
extremely poor people to a more embarrassing situation.
When distributing
benefits or granting relief, government officials require applicants to provide
Aadhaar identity, e-mail address, and bank account number.
Those who are unable
to provide, must rush to the address designated by the government within the
specified time, provide various documents, and receive relief in person,
otherwise for giving up.
Many mountain villages in India have inconvenient
transportation, and the railway system is notoriously bad. Most of the poor
people are frail elderly, who may lose the opportunity to receive relief
because they cannot get it on the spot.
Another concern to the public is that the Indian Identity Authority UIDAI
(UIDAI) After the establishment of the national identity
database, the national personal information associated with the identification
code is increasing. In terms of statistics and marketing, these data have
extremely high commercial value and can help commercial companies to accurately
market. Some commercial companies hope to cooperate with the database
management department to dig deep into the commercial value of data. Some
software technology companies are also selling solutions to the government,
suggesting that in the areas of public governance and combating crime,
analyzing data through software to better achieve social control.
It is for
this reason that the Aadhaar project has received more criticism. In a previous
lawsuit, the Supreme Court of India has ruled that the act of sharing national
data between the government and commercial organizations is unconstitutional
and should be prohibited.
However, where the benefits are, people must tend to.
The court's injunction obviously cannot prevent profit-seekers from obtaining
database resources through improper channels.
Another reason for the public’s dissatisfaction with the
Aadhaar project is that some problems occurred during the progress of the
Aadhaar project, such as data security. The Indian Identity Authority
apparently did not respond well to the voice of public doubt, but just vowed
that the database is not safe. There are problems, and data breaches are only
small-scale cases.
In the face of frequent data breaches, the competent
department was embarrassed but apparently lacked timely and effective
solutions. Many data breaches are obviously caused by insiders committing
crimes or cooperating inside and outside. At the time of legislation, the
relevant laws gave the Indian Identity Authority the criminal prosecution power
for criminal acts infringing the Aadhaar project, but it is clear that many
criminal crimes involving the Aadhaar project have not been prosecuted, and the
complaints of the victims have been ignored or shelved. Be accountable.
The outbreak occurred in November 2017. The Indian Identity
Authority confirmed to the public that due to a serious data breach in the
Aadhaar database, the database was subject to external intrusion and data
packets were leaked. The identification codes of more than 100 million people
and their associated user names, home addresses, bank accounts, and mobile
phones The phone and email address were leaked. The hacker even posted the
leaked data on 210 public government websites, proving to the public that
"the security of the database is not as reliable as the administrator
claims."
This data breach has caused great damage to people’s
personal privacy, information security, transaction security, and property
security. It has also caused a wave of serious dissatisfaction between the
people and the society against the government and bureaucracy, which in turn
has triggered Aadhaar.
The question of the constitutionality of the project
finally launched the constitutionality review litigation.
The principles established by the unconstitutional Social Security Number Card review
ruling
In the ruling, the five justices of the Supreme Court have
disputed the constitutionality of the Aadhaar project, but most of their
knowledge is basically the same. That is, through the Internet, biotechnology
and database construction, India has such a 13.
In a country with a population
of 100 million, it is necessary and beneficial to complete the identification
and authentication of citizenship, to improve the working efficiency of administrative
organs and social organizations, and to prevent the occurrence of corruption
from the system.
The original intention and design goal of the Aadhaar project
are to improve the country’s governance and government’s ability to serve the
public through the use of technology.
The welfare of the Aadhaar project for
the development of Indian society is obvious, and there is no evidence that in the
Aadhaar project design, there is an intention to deliberately violate
the spirit of the Constitution and infringe upon the people’s constitutional
rights.
This may be the reason for this unconstitutional review lawsuit, which
resulted in a four-to-one voting majority to confirm the constitutionality of
the Aadhaar project.
The opposition minority judge Chandrakud, in his separate
judgment, worriedly pointed out that while people enjoy the conveniences
brought by Internet technology, they obviously underestimated the more than one
billion involved in the Aadhaar project.
The identification and related data
collection carried out by Indian citizens has brought unprecedented challenges
to national security, social order and the protection of personal rights.
Unlike
several other judges, the security of cloud storage technology is not the same,
Chandrakud The judge was skeptical of the security claimed by the Indian
Identity Authority and the information security experts of the Aadhaar project.
Judge Chandrakud believes that in the Aadhaar project, the key core data
inventory is placed in a centralized cloud system management model.
Although
the technology company claims that this is a technology-guaranteed and very
secure database management model, it combines the previous data leakage.
In the
face of data security problems in the Internet era, large-scale data leakage
may cause serious harm to most uncertain people. Faced with hacker threats and
data security, the Aadhaar project authorities and technical service companies
apparently failed to submit convincing solutions.
In addition, Judge Chandrakud believes that the importance of
beautifying the Aadhaar project for the development of Indian society is the
fact that the promotion of the Aadhaar project and the collection of citizens’ personal information data objectively directly violate the citizens’ right to
protect personal information.
The right to privacy also violates citizens’ right
to choose lifestyles, that is, citizens have the right to choose a lifestyle
that completely escapes the Internet. This is part of citizens’ right to
freedom and self-determination.
Digital Prisoner
But it is clear that the Aadhaar project and
the national information collection and database construction it has promoted
have protected the constitutional rights of civil liberties from the
foundation, and people will be trapped in a "digital prisoner",
whether you want it or not.
Yes, you have lost the decision-making power of
lifestyle.
The positive significance of the Indian Supreme Court ruling
is that although the Aadhaar project is confirmed to be constitutional, it does
not mean that the Aadhaar project managers and executors can do whatever they
want. Because the ruling also establishes some rules of the game and
establishes the legal boundary of the behavior.
SC Ruling on Voluntary Principle of Aadhaar
First of all, in the ruling, the voluntary principle of
participation in the Aadhaar project was reaffirmed.
Government departments,
social organizations, and commercial institutions must not require or in
disguise to require applicants to provide identification codes, and must not
refuse service or reduce services because they cannot provide them service
standards.
The practice of forcibly establishing links between identification
codes and mobile phone numbers and bank accounts has been declared
unconstitutional.
In addition, the ruling stated that private commercial
companies cannot force clients to provide identification codes; at the same
time, any commercial use or data analysis of the database collected by the
Aadhaar project was declared a violation of the Constitution on the protection
of citizens’ privacy. The behaviors are not constitutional. the use of the
Aadhaar database must be carried out strictly in accordance with the law.
Even
if the database is used by law enforcement and judicial institutions for the
performance of their duties, they can only be used strictly in specific
circumstances. Under any authorized use the relevant legislation of the Aadhaar
database will be subject to constitutional review.
The content of the review
includes not only legality but also "tests of necessity and
proportionality".
The social significance and repercussions of the Base ID case
The unconstitutional review proceedings carried out around
the Aadhaar project and the judicial opinions clearly stated by the judges of
the Supreme Court of India in the ruling, although the background is in India,
the legal issues involved in this period include digital identity, personal
information protection And data security, etc., but it is a
cross-jurisdictional and cross-cultural worldwide problem and problem in the
Internet era.
Supreme Court's Constitutional Ruling on Aadhaar
India’s Supreme Court’s Aadhaar project constitutionality
ruling responded to some sensitive issues in the Aadhaar project.
While
proclaiming the Aadhaar project’s constitutionality, it also established some
rules that showed the Indian Supreme Court ’s judges on some controversial issues.
attitude.
But it is clear that even among the five judges who made the ruling,
the concepts and views have not been completely unified, and the dispute
continues.
Government Response to Supreme Court Ruling on Aadhaar
Fortunately, the Indian government has responded positively
to the Supreme Court’s ruling and stated that it will carry out follow-up
actions based on the issues and recommendations mentioned in the ruling,
including checking whether the existing framework and specific action plan of
the Aadhaar project exist.
Violation of the unconstitutional behavior and
misconduct pointed out by the Constitutional Review of the Supreme Court, and
extensively listened to public opinions and carried out rectification and
promotion of the project.
