Justice K.S.Puttaswamy(Retd) vs Union Of India on 26 September, 2018
(iii) Non-core biometric information comprising photograph;
(iv) Core biometric information comprising finger print and iris scan.
193) Demographic information, both mandatory and optional, and photographs does not raise a
reasonable expectation of privacy under Article 21 unless under special circumstances such as
juveniles in conflict of law or a rape victims identity. Today, all global ID cards contain photographs
for identification alongwith address, date of birth, gender etc. The demographic information is
readily provided by individuals globally for disclosing identity while relating with others and while
seeking benefits whether provided by government or by private entities, be it registration for
citizenship, elections, passports, marriage or enrolment in educational institutions. Email ids and
phone numbers are also available in public domain, For example in telephone directories. Aadhaar
Act only uses demographic information which are not sensitive and where no reasonable
expectation of privacy exists - name, date of birth, address, gender, mobile number and e mail
address. Section 2(k) specifically provides that Regulations cannot include race, religion, caste,
tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income or medical history. Thus, sensitive
information specifically stand excluded.
194) We find that Section 32 (3) of the Aadhaar Act specifically prohibits the authority from
collecting, storing or maintaining, either directly or indirectly any information about the purpose of
authentication. The proviso to Regulation 26 of Authentication Regulations is also to the same
effect.
195) Thus, the principle of data minimization is largely followed.
196) With this, we advert to some other provisions, challenge whereof is based on threat to security
of the data. These are Section 2(c), Section 2(g) and Section 2(h) read with Section 10 of the
Aadhaar Act. Section 2(c) pertains to authentication. It is a process by which Aadhaar number along
with demographic information or biometric information of an individual is submitted to the CIDR
for its verification. On submission thereof, the CIDR verifies the correctness or lack of it. CIDR is
defined in Section 2(h). Section 10 lays down that the Authority may engage one or more entities to
establish or maintain the CIDR and to perform any other functions as may be specified by
regulations.
197) Insofar as authentication process is concerned, that has already been taken note of above. The
manner in which it is explained by the respondent authority, that may not pose much of a problem.
As noted earlier, while seeking authentication, neither the location of the person whoso identity is to
be verified nor the purpose for which authentication of such identity is needed, comes to the
knowledge of the Authority and, therefore, such data collected by the Authority. Therefore, the
threat to real time surveillance and profiling may be far-fetched. The respondents have explained
that Section 2(d) defines authentication record to mean the record of the time of authentication,
identity of the RE and the response provided by the authority, Regulation 26 (a) to (d) does not go
beyond the scope of Section 2(d). None of the four clauses of Regulation 26 entitle the authority to
store data about the purpose for which authentication is being done. The device can therefore only
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