Linking of Aadhar with social media: Supreme Court seeks opinion of centre

September 13: A Supreme Court bench comprising of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose opined on Friday that the issue of linking of social media profiles with Aadhaar needs to be decided at the earliest. The bench was hearing a plea by Facebook to call forth petitions pending in various high courts concerning the linking of social media accounts of users with their Aadhaar numbers.

Facebook and WhatsApp have strongly objected to Aadhaar linkage, asserting that it would affect the privacy of its users. It said a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court had upheld privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. But Tamil Nadu has countered that the “whole attempt” of Facebook was to “evade compliance with Indian law”.

Facebook Inc had contended that there are four petitions including — two in Madras High Court, one in Bombay and one in Madhya Pradesh high courts — and they contained almost similar prayers. Facebook wants the apex court to transfer the pending petitions to itself and decide them finally.

The SC bench asked Centre-appointed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta if the government is framing any law or regulations with respect to social media. “We will have to do something if Centre isn’t doing anything about the issues here,” the top court said. Following the Supreme Court’s reproach, the Centre agreed to clarify its stand by September 24.

The top court had asked social media companies including Facebook and WhatsApp to explain what would be the effect of recent amendments in Aadhaar Act by which the 12-digit unique identity number could be shared with the private party for larger public interest. Social media giants like Facebook has been resisting the state’s suggestion to link Aadhar to social media accounts on grounds that it would violate the privacy of users. Facebook had also said it cannot share the Aadhaar number with a third party as the content on its instant messaging Whatsapp was end-to-end encrypted and even they do not have access to it.

The Bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose scheduled the case for hearing on 24 September, 2019.