Can the Aadhaar juggernaut be stopped now?

By restricting the usage of Aadhaar to just two schemes, the Supreme Court seems to have missed out on the wide usage that Aadhaar has acquired in the last couple of years

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court passed an order on Aadhaar restricting its use by the government to just delivering cooking gas and food subsidy. It also said that the government must communicate widely that the unique identity number is not mandatory but voluntary. 

The impact of the order has been minimal so far with most schemes continuing to operate like earlier. However, the Aadhaar project which has found great support by the Narendra Modi government, suffered a jolt with this order. It greatly restricts the scope of the project which is slowly becoming ubiquitous in the country. 

While the advocates of privacy are hailing the move, supporters of Aadhaar are looking at it as another clog in the wheel in its journey which has been far from smooth. Though the court order which is in response to a petition that claimed that residents are being denied services for the want of Aadhaar may have addressed the main issue, it seems a little out of sync with the realities of today. 

The petition was filed in mid 2013 when less than half the country was enrolled under the project which justified the argument that a vast majority of people were out of the system. However, as government data shows almost 90 crore people have Aadhaar numbers now, which makes the “not everyone has Aadhaar” argument almost redundant. 

As far as restricting the usage of Aadhaar to just two schemes is concerned, the Court seems to have missed out on the wide usage that Aadhaar has acquired in the last couple of years – be its use in central government for attendance, in banks for opening accounts or delivering welfare schemes other than LPG and PDS -- some of which are proving to be hugely beneficial. If the intent of the Court in restricting the usage of Aadhaar is to tackle the privacy issue and therefore minimize the security concerns associated with it, then perhaps addressing the root cause of such concerns would be a better solution. 

Despite the fact that the present government has lent massive support to the project, it has failed to pass the UID Bill in the Parliament which defines the penalties in case of a breach. The bill also provides a solid legal backing to Aadhaar which is so far being run on an executive order. The Privacy Bill which contained detailed dos and don'ts on data protection with sensitive schemes such as UID and NatGrid has also not seen the light of the day for the last three –four years despite being redrafted several times. 

If the government moves fast on these two legislations, it is maybe able to provide some comfort to the court as well as paranoid residents who are still not convinced about Aadhaar and its benefits. Perhaps, its time to address the issue once and for all.