TMC opposes Aadhaar legislation

The Trinamool Congress Thursday opposed amendments to the Aadhaar law, saying it lacks transparency and strikes at the very heart of individual privacy.

Participating in the debate on The Aadhaar and other Services (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in Lok Sabha, Mahua Moitra said the bill speaks of a regulator which will govern various provisions.

She said there are no details of the proposed regulator in the bill, which makes it opaque. She said the regulator should be integrated in the bill itself.

Referring to the "Aadhaar ecosystem", she sought to know the legal recourse one can take if the ecosystem fails.

"Without a data protection law, it is like putting cart before the horse," she said.

Moitra claimed that Aadhaar was perceived as a system to enable the poor get services, but that now, it has turned into an "aquisitive" entity.

She also questioned a provision which says that the "authority" will have a right to legal recourse in case of a data breach. She said the legal recourse should lie with the person whose privacy has been breached.

She said most people are not aware of the value of personal data.

To drive home her point, she said many people shared their data to get a Jio sim card which was offering free data.