Infosys co-founder and former Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani Monday said Aadhaar did not qualify as a tool for surveillance and privacy and it was just an ID.
Defending Aadhaar, the Infosys co-founder said it nevercollected data on individual.
“It (Aadhaar) is a much simpler system because theprivacy problem becomes more acute when there is an organisation collectingdata on you. Aadhaar was never collecting data on you.
All that Aadhaar was doing was giving an ID and doingverification. So, it is not really a great candidate for this(surveillance),” Nilekani said.
According to him, privacy is different from surveillance.
“…Especially privacy is used in the market sensewhere a business is not too much about you and, therefore, you cancommercialise it,” Nilekani said during an interactive session at theNational Executive Committee meeting of Federation of Indian Chambers ofCommerce and Industries here.
Elaborating further, Nilekani said surveillance was more astate concern, in which state knows too much about the individuals and thenuses it.
After his lecture was over, someone from the audience soughtto know how real is the threat of people losing their identity and detailsbecoming known to the world.
Replying to the question, Nilekani said surveillance shouldbe a matter of concern.
However, it is not just Aadhaar but a host of things, hepointed out.
In this context, Nilekani said mobile phone qualified onkeeping a tab on any individuals privacy because it is with people round theclock and listens to every conversation.
Acknowledging the concern that if Aadhaar becomesubiquitous, is used in multiple applications and then somebody combines them,Nilekani said the important feature of the ID system is that private firmscannot store the Aadhaar number.
He, however, welcomed the debate on Aadhaar as it led to the fundamental question whether Indians have the fundamental rights to privacy or not and the matter went to the Supreme Court.