PRIVACYLAWS OF THE UNITED STATESAlthough the Constitution does not explicitly includethe right to privacy, the Supreme Court has found that the Constitutionimplicitly grants a right to privacy against governmental intrusion from the First Amendment, Third Amendment, FourthAmendment, and the Fifth Amendment. This right to privacy has been thejustification for decisions involving a wide range of civil liberties cases,including Pierce v. Society of Sisters, which invalidated a successful1922 Oregon initiative requiring compulsory public education, Griswoldv. Connecticut, where a right to privacy was first establishedexplicitly, Roe v. Wade, which struck down a Texas abortion law and thusrestricted state powers to enforce laws against abortion, and Lawrencev.
Texas, which struck down a Texas sodomy law and thus eliminatedstate powers to enforce laws against sodomy.AADHAARSCHEMEAadhaar project (launched in 2009) is considered theworld’s largest biometric database and one of its kind online biometric-basedidentity system. The government authority UIDAI issues a unique identity card(UID) to an individual. UID is issued by attaining his general details likename, address, date of birth etc. as well as private details like finger printsand vision pattern. Physical structure and appearance of an individual isconsidered to be his most private detail.
Therefore, UIDAI in its scheme isdirectly interfering with the physical body of an individual and alsoinfringing one’s right to keep his personal information private in order to gethimself registered in the government records. The biometrics information in UIDcard is collected by the private authorities in a very weak and unorganizedmanner which upshots data breaches and is further stored in large deposits thatare considerably risky for it’s security. Also these data of privateinformation is stored in central identities data depository from where it canbe easily assessed, therefore resulting in data hacking and it’s destroying.THECUREIn order to solve the problem of security of biometricinformation the government may completely eliminate the biometrics informationproviding system in UIDAI. This will help in thwarting any form of security orprivacy issues.
Only by providing the generic information governmental agenciescan also properly identify an individual rather than collecting the privateinformation like biometric and vision patterns. In one of the articles, JusticeP.S Puttaswamy said that there are no safeguards or penalties and nolegislative backing for obtaining personal information, and the proposed lawintroduced by the government has been rejected by the Parliamentary StandingCommittee on Finance.
Moreover, he alleged, that Aadhar numbers were givenindiscriminately, including to migrants without papers, creating a seriousthreat to national security. The executive order was malafide as the wholeobject of rushing through the Aadhaar schemes was to secure “political gains”.
