Letters: Nation before privacy

With reference to the editorial, "A law for Aadhaar" (March 5), the government's move to provide statutory backing to Aadhaar cards should be welcomed, more so because it aims to eliminate the scope of leakage in disbursing subsidies - by way of impersonation or duplication of identities - and leads to better targeting. I agree with the editorial that the government should not have taken the Money Bill route to enact it, as this makes it needlessly controversial.

Aadhaar was introduced with the objective of building a nationwide database of all citizens. Perhaps, the possibility of using these cards for targeting and regulating subsidies was not visualised at that time.

Regarding the government's attempt to have built-in measures to protect the privacy of individuals by not allowing the data collected to be accessed wrongly or misused is supplemented by the fact that access to Aadhaar data would be allowed only at a high level in the government. However, exceptional cases may necessitate judicial intervention and the police or the national security agencies may seek access to the biometric and geographical data of certain individuals in the interests of the nation.

Why can't we take a cue from the US whose laws provide its national security agencies access to the entire database of every American citizen, including the President of the country? Why do Indians always seek the enforcement of their fundamental rights but seldom talk about performing their duties towards their motherland? A nation is supreme and ranks above all other interests.

S Kumar, New Delhi

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