The man who built the Aadhaar system for the UPA government heaped high praise on the BJP-led government’s version of the law. Nandan Nilekani said that the privacy measures in this version are as good as they can be.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Nilekani said:
In fact, this (the Bill on privacy) is stronger than the original Bill. The Bill has a very robust privacy protection beyond what any other legislation has ever provided in India. It is as good as it gets.
Under the new law, biometric data captured will be used only for Aadhaar enrolment and verification purposes. Information on any citizen cannot be divulged or displayed publicly to any institution, but for an exception of national security. And even such an exception will be valid only for six months.
Although the Aadhar Bill has been criticised for compromising privacy, in the interest of national security, earlier the UPA government’s National Identification Authority of India Bill of 2010 too provided similar reasons of national security.
According to Nilekani:
World over – every database is open for national security. In any country, national security concerns provides for authorities to access any system. The question is whether anyone will misuse it. The Aadhaar Bill has enough safeguards, and its privacy constraints are stronger than the previous Bill. It is a big leap forward in the quality of legislation India has seen.
Read the full article on the Indian Express.
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