UIDAI's bid to hire social media agency against its submissions: SC

The Supreme Court Friday said the proposal of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs the Aadhaar scheme, to hire a social media agency to monitor such platforms was contrary to its earlier submissions. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud also asked Attorney General K K Venugopal to assist it in the hearing of the plea on the issue filed by Mohua Moitra, an MLA of the Trinamool Congress. "It (monitoring) is directly against the submissions made by the UIDAI during the hearing of the Aadhaar matters," the bench said, adding that what the UIDAI was proposing was contrary to "what it had argued while seeking validity of Aadhaar". The UIDAI, during the hearing of a clutch of petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar scheme, had told the apex court that it did not want to monitor the online activities of citizens holding Aadhaar cards.

Aadhaar not needed for mobile SIM; passport, voter ID or licence will do

You no longer need an Aadhaar to get a mobile connection; telecom companies would now also accept other documents like passport, driving licence and voter ID, with the Centre reportedly directing them immediately implement a new rule to this effect.

The development comes after the Supreme Count on March 14 issued an interim order indefinitely extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar to bank accounts, mobile phone numbers, passports and other services, beyond the previous deadline of March 31. A five-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said there was no need to link Aadhaar to these services until a judgment was pronounced on the constitutionality of the unique identification programme.

Here are the top updates on new rules clarifying whether or not Aadhaar is mandatory for procuring mobile SIMs:

1) Aadhaar no longer mandatory: You no longer need an Aadhaar card to buy a mobile SIM, The Times of India reported on Wednesday. The government had directed telecom companies to accept alternative documents like driving licence, passport and voter ID, the report said. Further, it said quoting Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan that telecom operators had been asked to follow the new rule with immediate effect. 

SC red flags threat of Aadhaar data misuse, fears poll manipulation

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The Cambridge Analytica data leak controversy on Tuesday found mention in the Supreme Court, which red flagged the threat of probable misuse of citizens' information by entities which were getting Aadhaar details authenticated by the UIDAI.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing clutch of petitions challenging Aadhaar and enabling 2016 law, referred to the Cambridge Analytica controversy and said these are not "imaginary apprehensions" and, in the absence of robust data protection law, the issue of misuse of information becomes relevant.

"The real apprehension is that elections are swayed using data analytics. These problems are symptomatic of the world we live in," the bench, also comprising Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, said.

"Please do not bring Cambridge Analytica into this. The UIDAI simply does not have the learning algorithms like Facebook, Google to analyse details of users," senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the Gujarat government, said.

Aadhaar leak report: Editors Guild condemns FIR against journalist

The Delhi Police has registered an FIR on a complaint by a deputy director of the Unique Identification Authority of India in connection with a newspaper report on the breach of details of the over one billion Aadhaar cards, naming the journalist behind the story.

UIDAI Deputy Director B M Patnaik informed the police that an input was received from The Tribune that the newspaper purchased a service being offered by anonymous sellers over WhatsApp that provided unrestricted access to details of any of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers created in India, the police said today.

On January 5, a complaint was received from Patnaik and the FIR was registered the same day, they said.

The police was informed by the UIDAI official that the correspondent of The Tribune, posing as a buyer, had purchased the details.

The FIR mentions the names of the journalist and the people the reporter reached out to purchase the Aadhaar data, but they have not been shown as accused, the police said.

The police said that they will be questioned.

Under fire for filing the FIR, the UIDAI said it respects free speech, including freedom of the press, and its police complaint should not be viewed as "shooting the messenger".AX
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