'Stop Collection Of Students' Aadhaar Numbers' : Plea In Kerala High Court Against Centre's UDISE+ Platform

The Kerala High Court has sought the response of the Union Government and the Kerala Government on a petition which challenges the collection of Aadhaar number of students and parents for the Unified District Information System for Education Plus ('UDISE+') platform.

UDISE+ is a program initiated by the Department of School Education and Literacy under the Union Ministry of Education, which organises and classifies all school data from across the country for the purpose of building a credible database of school data. It publishes annual flash statistics reports based on the database collected from schools across the country. 

The petitioner, an organization named Democratic Alliance For Knowledge Freedom (DAKF), challenged the collection of personal data, including the Aadhaar number, of students and the mobile numbers parents, by the Unified District Information System for Education Plus ('UDISE+') platform. 

The plea seeks a direction to be issued to the Central Government and the MeitY to forthwith and immediately stop the collection of personal data of students and their parents through the UDISE+ portal. The petitioner also seeks that the letters issued by the Central Government authorities to States for collection of data for UDISE+  be set aside.

It also seeks the issuance of directions to the respondent authorities to delete all personal information collected from students and their parents in the portal, and to not transfer such personal information to any third party including Government departments, Government agencies and private parties. 

On Monday (October 30), a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice A.J. Desai and Justice V.G. Arun issued notice and sought the response of the Union Ministry of Education, Union IT Ministry and Kerala Public Education Department.The matter has been posted for further consideration on November 23, 2023.

The petitioner states that as per the website of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Student Database Management System is developed to manage the records of the students such as Student Profile, Enrolment, Dropouts, Transfers, Progression / Holdback, and so on, which would help in generating reports at the Central, State, district, block, and school level. This Management System which comprises information of the student from States / Autonomous Bodies (Federated Entities) and converges it for various schools consistently at national level, is deployed for various States, Autonomous bodies, School Management as a separate instance as their need, and also provides the requisite information to UDISE+. 

The petitioner avers that the Central Government, upon noting that the enrolment data of various schools, institutions, and organization imparting education within the purview of the State Government is not provided in the UDISE+, issued a letter calling for efforts to be made to seed Aadhaar number in respect of maximum possible students and to provide the same while pushing data in UDISE+. 

The petitioner states that while the Government decided to capture the enrolment data covered under State Government purview through UDISE+ in a bid to improve India's ranking in global indices, such as 'Human Capital Index (HCI)', 'Expected Years of Schooling'(EYS), and so on, and emphasized upon the collection of Aadhaar number, which had hitherto not been required, the object of collecting such data from students has however not been specified. 

It is submitted that the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) also subsequently issued a letter, giving specific emphasis on completion of data entry of the school students in UDISE+ for the academic year 2022-23 on or before August 31, 2023, and that Aadhaar number of the students as well as the teachers were demanded in Part 1 of UDISE+ 2023-24 DCF form. The petitioner adds that other personal information of students as well as their parents including Aadhaar number, address and mobile number are also collected, without any consent mechanism. 

The petitioner avers that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had specifically stated in its circular issued in 2018 that no child would be deprived/denied of their benefits or rights for want of Aadhaar. 

It further submits that as per the Data Sharing Policy for School Education & Literacy issued in September 2020, by DoSEL, data available with DoSEL has been categorized as sensitive and non-sensitive, with sensitive data being shareable only on the basis of a specific authorised request on a case to case basis, backed by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) between the requestor and DoSEL. 

"The policy has made it very clear about the objectives behind the collection of different data by the DoSEL. These does not anywhere indicate the collection of Aadhar number as it is a Personally Identifiable Information. It also does not indicate the need for collecting other Personally Identifiable information," the petitioner adds. 

The petitioner thus submits that the objectives of the data collection exercise could be met without collecting personal identifiable information, as in the present case. 

In this regard, the society avers that the collection of personal data of the students and their parents and transferring the same to other entities or organizations would violate their right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. 

The petitioner submits that capturing personal data of students through the UDISE+ portal in the absence of taking informed consent from parents, would also constitute a grave violation of safe data protection practices and provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which is yet to be implemented. 

"By linking funding for education to collection of data including Aadhaar data states are being forced to collect personal information of students and parents and enter these into a centralised database. The centralised collection of personal information of students and parents is arbitrary and illegal," the plea states. 

In addition, the petitioner avers that children between the ages of 6-14 have a fundamental right to free and compulsory education under Article 21A, and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, further enables this right. It thus contends that Aadhaar data is not mandatory for enrolment in schools, and that the Apex Court had explicitly laid down in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2019), that benefits to children under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan would not require Aadhaar enrolment. 

The petitioner argues that there is no law providing for such collection of Aadhaar number of students and their parents, and that the same also violates the principle of proportionality. 

In addition, the petitioner also submits that the centralised collection of Aadhaar Data and other personal data of school students by the respondents is in violation of the principle of Data Minimization, which provides that organizations ought to limit the collection of personal data to what is strictly necessary for the stated purpose.

"The collection of Student Data without any reasonable object amounts to high level profiling of students. Such amalgamation of data with academic records, attendance, and other school-related information, schools can create comprehensive profiles of students that offer detailed insights into their identities, family backgrounds, and behaviours. This level of data aggregation enables sophisticated categorization and segmentation of students, allowing for the identification of patterns and traits, which can lead to profiling based on various criteria such as academic performance, socioeconomic status, and demographic characteristics",the plea states, adding that such exercise would violate the dictum in Puttaswamy judgment, the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, as well as pose the risk of sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.

The present plea has been moved through Advocates Prasanth Sugathan, Varsha Bhaskar, Anupama Sibi, Ammu Charles, N. Krishna Ozhakkanat, and Malavika K. 

Case Title: Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom v. Union of India & Ors. 

Case Number: W.P.(C) No. 35685/ 2023