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HomeNewsTechnologySo what happens to your Aadhaar data that banks and telcos already have?

So what happens to your Aadhaar data that banks and telcos already have?

Legal and industry experts are divided on what could happen to the personal data that was shred with telcos, banks and insurance companies.

September 27, 2018 / 19:45 IST

There seem to be numerous concerns over the existing Aadhaar data with banks and telecom companies, following the Supreme Court verdict on Right to Privacy.

The most prominent being, whether these private institutions will delete or retain personal information.

Legal and industry experts are divided on what would happen to the data that you shared while purchasing your SIM card, with banks and insurance companies.

"I believe telco data has to be deleted. Others are less clear," said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Policy Director at privacy organisation Access Now.

The point made in Justice DY Chandrachud's judgement, and Justice AK Sikri's majority judgement did not contest this point, Chima added.

Others however, see this differently. A lot comes down to how the judgement will be interpreted by the government and private entities.

"When the data was collected (by a telco or private bank), explicit consent wasn't taken. That data was collected assuming it was mandatory to take the Aadhaar numbers for a service. If a private entity wants to keep using that data they would have to take that consent again," said Neel Ratan, Regional Managing Partner - North and Government Leader at consultancy PwC.

Ratan added that if you ask your telecom provider or bank to delete the linked data, they will be duty-bound to do so, but there is no clarity on how you would make a request for the deletion of data.

The judgement does mention that Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Aadhaar User Agencies, will have to delete authentication data  after six months instead of five years as mentioned earlier.

The exception here is to cases where authentication of transaction data is required by a court or in connection of a pending dispute. But again, this is not explicitly applicable to private entities.

"While the Court has held section 57, which allowed the use of Aadhaar by private parties as unconstitutional, it has left open the possibility of the government bringing a law which authorises such use," said Sarvjeet Singh, Executive Director, Centre of Communication Governance, National Law University Delhi.

He added that  even if the government tried to bring in a new law, "it will still be difficult for the government to argue that private parties cannot use alternatives other than Aadhaar."

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Neha Alawadhi
first published: Sep 27, 2018 07:42 pm

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