Linking Aadhaar with social media can lead to insidious profiling of people

Last week, the Tamil Nadu government told the Supreme Court that Aadhaar numbers should be linked to the social media profiles of users so that fake news and anti-national content can be checked. This has worried many as they fear misuse. Apar Gupta, executive director of Internet Freedom Foundation, tells Anam Ajmal that even consensual linking would be unconstitutionalDoes linking Aadhaar with social media violate the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy privacy judgment?It would violate the Puttaswamy Aadhaar decision because Justice Sikri’s opinion, which is the majority opinion, holds that linking Aadhaar with private platforms is unconstitutional due to two reasons. One, the very objective of the Aadhaar Act is to provide a method to check leakages and provide targeted delivery of subsidies, rations and government benefits. Second is the incredible dangers that emerge from the commercial use of Aadhaar. So, the linkage does not tie with the objectives of the law. Given that most social media companies are foreign private corporations, such linkage would clearly be unconstitutional. Even consensual linking would be unconstitutional.What is the background of the current case?There have been two PILs filed in the Madras HC for seeking to link Aadhaar with social media platforms. In subsequent hearings, the scope has broadened and HC has also examined issues that law enforcement agencies face in the online sphere like difficulties in content takedowns on social media. It also concerns the role of digital media like instant messaging platforms in inciting people to commit certain acts of violence. After the case was filed, the Tamil Nadu government had organised a meeting with social media platforms to see if traceability can be achieved, where Dr Kamakoti, an expert from IIT Madras, gave several technical suggestions on encryption and why it’s not essential to these platforms. So, now this case has become a lot about encryption and traceability.What is at stake if accounts can be traced, and therefore do not remain anonymous?Given that our society is extremely unequal, there is an argument to preserve anonymity. Women, for example, have really championed anonymity as a method to correct systemic and historic sexual harassment through the MeToo movement. Caste groups have used it to highlight how certain institutions, particularly those that offer education and health services, have discriminated against them. So, anonymity may seem like it is enabling online abuse but removing by linking Aadhaar and social media could lead to more problems.What are some other dangers of linking social media accounts and Aadhaar?Data collection will just increase. Aadhaar is a unique identifier which ties across databases — driving licence and vehicular registration, PAN, social security benefits, employment records, pension funds, provident funds, school admissions. So, these databases can talk to each other and data hoarders can also then collate this information. When this information is collated with Aadhaar, it can lead to a 360-degree profile of an individual. This kind of profiling can become, and is becoming very insidious. For example, health insurance premiums can be linked to dietary habits of individuals by tracking what they are purchasing online through a food sharing app. Your health insurance app and food app can talk to each other on the basis of Aadhaar since both these apps have social media networking and community features. The bigger danger is legality. Laws are there to protect imbalances of power. This imbalance is derived from an asymmetry of information, when you do not know enough to take an informed decision with respect to something that will have impact on you. Personal data is information. It does impact you, and today we have no meaningful laws which tell you who holds what data about you, how it’s used, with whom it’s shared, till when it’s kept and in which form.What are some of the challenges that the government faces when it comes to regulating online presence and threats?There are policy deficiencies when it comes to the online realm. For example, when it comes to takedowns, governments often point out that the rate of compliance is not 100%. But there needs to be more transparency when it comes to content takedowns. Even when books are banned under CrPC, there needs to be a gazette notification which sets out reasons by the government as to why the book is being banned. This allows people to challenge that order but also gives people the information that why their fundamental right to receive information is being censored. This naturally requires a larger stakeholder conversation between companies, law enforcement agencies, civil societies, academicians and technical experts. Social media can be brought within a degree of regulation by adopting data protection laws. If these companies don’t gather a lot of data, or if there is the right to correct data, it will provide a higher degree of security to people. You don’t always have to go down the surveillance route. The primary problem is that mass surveillance presumes everyone to be a criminal. So, why be put under watch? So, when people say that there is nothing to hide, I say that there is nothing to watch.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/34jPR7U