Aadhaar details have not been compromised, UIDAI tells Madras HC – The Hindu

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that it had never shared citizens’ personal data, provided to it for the purpose of obtaining Aadhaar cards, with any entity other than its “authorised user agencies” and that those agencies had been strictly prohibited from storing or sharing any information related to Aadhaar.

Appearing before Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, Central government standing counsel V. Chandrasekhar, representing the UIDAI, asserted that it was not possible to share Aadhaar details in bulk with any entity. He also said the UIDAI was committed to protecting the privacy of individuals and that there was no possibility of any leak from the records maintained by it.

The submission was made during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by A. Anand of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) through senior counsel R. Vaigai. The litigant complained that the Puducherry unit of the BJP had been sending SMS to voters’ mobile phone numbers with a link to join booth-level WhatsApp groups created by the party for canvassing.

The petitioner said the SMS had been sent only to phone numbers linked with Aadhaar and not to others. However, senior counsel V. Karthic, representing the BJP, said the party’s karyakartas (field workers) had collected the phone numbers of voters through various sources, including missed calls made by them to join the party, door-to-door collection of details and from data available in the public domain.

He said the party had chosen to campaign through mobile technology due to the threat of COVID-19. On the other hand, senior counsel G. Rajagopalan, representing the Election Commission of India (ECI), told the court that the BJP had sent the SMS without obtaining pre-certification from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) as mandated under the model code of conduct.

He also said particulars regarding expenditure for such a campaign was not submitted to the Election Expenditure Monitoring Team. Hence, the ECI had decided to add ₹4.37 lakh to the expense account of the party.

He further said all the mobile service providers in Puducherry had been instructed not to send SMS at the instance of any political party unless such messages had been pre-certified by the MCMC.

However, Ms. Vaigai brought it to the notice of the court that her client had now filed a sub-application seeking a direction to the ECI to first suspend and then withdraw the recognition of the Puducherry unit of the BJP for having violated the model code of conduct. She said Rule 16A of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order of 1968 empowered the ECI to either suspend or withdraw the recognition for such violations.

After hearing all parties, the judges decided to take up the case on Thursday once again since they required time to go through the affidavits, counter affidavits and reports filed before the court.