HC grants time to UIDAI to file response on plea raising concern over Aadhaar data security

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday granted four more weeks to the UIDAI to file its response on a plea raising concerns about Aadhaar data security and privacy of individuals, in the wake of reported leak of personal information of people from the Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) database.

A bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Prateek Jalan listed the matter for further hearing on February 14 next year after giving more time to UIDAI to respond to the petition.

The court had earlier issued notice and sought reply of the authorities on the plea which also urged the court to direct the Centre to either allow people to opt out of the system or delete the entire existing UIDAI data in view of alleged security breaches.

During the day's hearing, UIDAI's counsel sought some time to place its reply which was allowed by the court.

The petitioner, Kerala-based lawyer Shamnad Basheer, has alleged in his plea that there were several breaches of the Aadhaar system leading to leakage of personal information of individuals since January this year and contended that UIDAI and the Centre were liable to compensate people whose data was compromised.

Referring to one such alleged breach, the plea has said a media house had managed to gain access to the entire database by paying a sum of Rs 500.

It has said the breach, which was acknowledged by UIDAI and later led to the lodging of a criminal case against those involved, was a result of a leak of the "access control" given to some individuals.

The petition has contended that the breaches occurred due to "negligence and willful recklessness" on the part of UIDAI in adopting reasonable security measures to secure private information.

It has also claimed that UIDAI was obligated to frame a comprehensive information security and privacy policy and sought action against the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for its alleged failure to adhere to security practices.

The plea has also sought setting up of an independent investigative committee to probe and audit all alleged security and privacy breaches of the Aadhaar database.