The Government introduced the Aadhaar Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha on January 2, 2019. The proposed changes in the Aadhaar Act is expected to provide legal backing for Aadhar authentication on a voluntary basis. The Bill met fierce opposition in the parliament with Congress and TMC alleging that it violates the Supreme Court order and the fundamental right to privacy. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad countered the allegations and asserted that the changes introduced are in compliance with SC’s order and there will be no breach of privacy. “It (Aadhaar) is not mandatory but voluntary whereby alternative modes of authentication are being provided,” Prasad said.
The amendments in the Aadhaar Act come after SC barred mandatory use of Aadhar by private firms while upholding its constitutionality in its verdict in September 2018.
According to the amendments, an Aadhaar holder can now opt for offline verification using a QR scan and will not be required to share the actual Aadhaar number. It also extends potential imprisonment from one year to three, and allows for civil penalties up to Rs 1 crore, with an additional fine of Rs 10 lakh per day in case of continuous non-compliance by errant entities in the Aadhar ecosystem. It also increases the penalty for unlawful Aadhaar data theft and tampering from three years to 10 years. The government claims that all these changes are introduced to ensure privacy.
Opposing the bill Trinamool Congress’s Saugata Roy said”the bill should not be introduced” and claimed that the proposed amendments infringe the SC judgment.
Further, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor claimed that the bill was brought in without consulting the stakeholders. Tharoor argued that the government’s move is premature because we first need a data protection law. He demanded that the bill must be withdrawn and revised. Endorsing Tharoor’s views, Revolutionary Socialist Party’s (RSP) N.K Premachandran alleged that the bill breaches the privacy of citizens.
Ravi Shankar Prasad on the behalf of the government rejected these arguments and said that the objections are ‘misplaced’ and that there is no invasion of privacy.