Aadhaar database scheme raises privacy fears as Lok Sabha passes bill

Author yuvamind

NEW DELHI:-Parliament on Wednesday passed legislation that provides central government agencies access to the world’s biggest biometric database in the interests of national security, raising fears the privacy of a billion people could be compromised.
The move comes as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party cracks down on student protests and pushes a Hindu nationalist agenda in assembly elections, steps that some say erode India’s traditions of tolerance and free speech. It could also usher in surveillance far more intrusive than the US telephone and Internet spying revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, some privacy advocates said. The Aadhaar database scheme, started seven years ago, was set up to streamline payment of benefits and cut down on massive wastage and fraud, and already nearly a billion people have registered their finger prints and iris signatures. Now the BJP, which inherited the scheme, wants to pass new provisions including those on national security, using a loophole to bypass the opposition in parliament. "It has been showcased as a tool exclusively meant for disbursement of subsidies and we do not realise that it can also be used for mass surveillance," said Tathagata Satpathy, a lawmaker from the eastern state of Odisha.
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