Supreme Court upholds validity of Aadhaar |
India`s top court upheld the government`s policy of issuing the 12-digit Aadhaar identification number to every citizen, but said it can`t be made mandatory for services such as bank accounts, cellphone connections and school admissions. In its 4-1 decision it could use Aadhaar for tax purposes and providing benefits under multimillion-dollar welfare schemes like subsidized food items and cooking gas. The Indian government has enrolled more than 90 percent of the country`s 1.3 billion people since it launched the Aadhaar scheme in 2010, linking fingerprints, iris scans and photos of citizens to the unique 12-digit number. Justice D. Y. Chandrachud , however, said the collection of data could lead to individual profiling of citizens and the data could be misused by a third party and private vendors without the consent of an individual.
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