Aadhaar Act and its Privacy Challenges

The Aadhaar Act is a money or cash bill of the Parliament of India. Passed by the Lok Sabha on the 11 March, 2016, this bill came into power on 12 July, 2016 and 12 September, 2016. An Aadhaar card is a card given to citizens of India and it reflects the proof of residence of a citizen of India and does not reflect their citizenship as a passport does. It was first conceptualized in 2009 and has been issued since then. It collects biometric data of the citizen such as fingerprints and eye scans and a photograph of the face. A unique 12-digit code is assigned to each person and all this data is stored by the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI in specific servers. These servers are said to be “physically protected” by the UIDAI. All this data is processed, kept and secured in UIDAI’s own server. These servers are not connected to the internet or any pen drive or similar devices. This information was given by UIDAI themselves. The Aadhaar Card holds various details about the holder of the card such as name, date of birth, address, gender, and name of parents or guardians in case of children.
The Aadhaar Act also has a few similarities with the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010. The most notable differences between the NIAI bill and Aadhaar Act are the three member board known as the Identity Review Committee and the section 8 of the Aadhaar Act is wholly different from that in the NIAI bill. Other difference between these two is that Aadhaar collects more data than biometrics which NIAI only collected the biometrics of the individual. This research paper’s main aim is to analyse if Aadhaar Act is an ambitious plan or a privacy concern. The Bharat Bhushan Gupta case and the Airtel scams have been analysed and studied.
People’s perspectives have been highlighted. Data breaches and how they happen in the Aadhaar cases have been explained vividly. Suggestions to the Aadhaar Act and how to make it better have also been stated.