Sharing Or Use Of Biometric Information For Any Purpose Other Than Authentication Under Aadhar Act Is Impermissible: UIDAI Tells Delhi High Court

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has informed the Delhi High Court that sharing or use of biometric information for any purpose other than the generation of the Aadhaar number and authentication under the Aadhaar Act, 2016 is impermissible.

The Authority has also informed the Court that biometric information is unique to an individual and therefore is sensitive information which needs to be protected to thwart any possibility of misuse.

The development came after UIDAI filed it's response in a plea seeking directions on the Authority to match the finger prints and photograph of an unknown accused, who committed a robbery and murder, with the data bank of Aadhaar and provide information with regards to their identity.

"No core biometric information collected or created under the Aadhaar Act, 2016 (as amended) and Regulations made thereunder, shall be shared with anyone for any reason whatsoever, or used for any purpose other than generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication under the Aadhaar Act, 2016 (as amended). Moreover, no Aadhaar data can be shared by any individual or entity with any individual or entity without the consent of the resident for that particular purpose," the status report reads.

The status report further states that the prayers made in the plea are not only contrary to the mandate of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 but are also contrary to the judgement of the five Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in K.S Puttaswamy (Retd) case.

It has also been submitted that the UIDAI does not collect biometric information i.e. iris scan and fingerprints based on technologies, standards or procedures suitable for forensic purposes and therefore using the biometric data for random matching purposes may not be technologically feasible and shall be beyond the purview of the Act.

"The technological architecture of UIDAI or its mandate for Aadhaar based authentication does not allow for any instance of l:N matching wherein finger prints including latent and chance finger prints are matched against the other finger prints in the UIDAI database, except for generation of Aadhaar number where the biometric information has been collected in accordance with the technically laid down procedure," the status report states further.

Stating that UIDAI can establish the identity of an individual only through an Aadhaar number and the process of authentication, it has been further averred that it's technological architecture does not allow matching of the biometric information unless the Aadhaar number is provided.

Accordingly, it is prayed that the plea be dismissed.

Title: State v. UIDAI