In the ongoing case in Supreme Court regarding Aadhaar, and breach of privacy, some very interesting arguments have been put forth by the Govt.
Sample this: Google is trying to sabotage and fail the Aadhaar concept in India!
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that very soon, every flight ticket booked in India will have to be mandatorily linked with Aadhaar.
No Aadhaar? Will this will mean you cannot board a flight?
UIDAI: Google Wants Aadhaar To Fail in India!
While arguing in the case, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for Unique Identity Authority of India claimed that Google and other ‘card companies’ don’t want Aadhaar’s success in India.
As per the arguments made, if Aadhaar becomes a major success, then Google and other companies will be out of business, very soon.
He said,
“If Aadhaar succeeds, smart cards will be out of business. Google does not want it. Smart card lobby does not want Aadhaar to succeed. That’s why these allegations are being made,”
The lawyer also dismissed the arguments that Aadhaar data leak can influence elections, saying,
“Aadhaar only has a matching algorithm to establish ‘I am me’. A phobia is being created that Aadhaar metadata is a like an atom bomb which can go off any time.”
Flight Tickets To Be Aadhaar-Linked Now?
As we had reported earlier, the Civil Aviation Ministry is making the final arrangements to link flight tickets with Aadhaar card.
This will enable paper-less boarding, as passengers will be required to only carry their e-boarding card, which can be scanned at the boarding gate. Using biometric entry, passengers can enter the airport, and board the flight.
This initiative has been termed as ‘Digi-Yatra’, and this can start from Bengaluru and Hyderabad from July 2018.
This seems futuristic and exciting, but privacy advocates have termed this as a bad decision.
Medianama founder Nikhil said,
“Someone will be refused entry or passage at some point in time, because fingerprints may not match. It will always fail for someone somewhere. We’ve seen high failure rates in Jharkhand,”
As per Archana Muthappa, GM & Head for Corporate Communications & CSR at Bengaluru International Airport, Civil Aviation Ministry is right now looking into it, as A Technical Working Committee (TWC) is right now working on the process to make it feasible.
We will keep you updated, as we receive more inputs into this new development.