Privacy A Fundamental Right: 10 Points On Supreme Court's landmark verdict

The Supreme Court's nine-judge Constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar upheld Right To Privacy as fundamental right on Thursday. All the nine judges had consensus over upholding Right To Privacy as fundamental right.

A nine-judge bench ruled that “right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution”.

Here are the ten major points on Supreme Court's landmark verdict 

#The Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy "is protected as an intrinsic part of Article 21 that protects life and liberty," 

#The order is based on an array of petitions that have challenged the mandatory use of Aadhaar cards which assign a unique 12-digit ID to every citizen. The Aadhaar database links iris scans and fingerprints to more than a billion people. 

#Supreme Court's verdict does not comment on whether the government's directive for Aadhar to be linked to all financial transactions amounts to an infringement of privacy.

#That decision will be taken by a separate and smaller bench of the Supreme Court. But experts said that today's ruling could prompt the government to tweak its arguments in that case.

#As per noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, all fundamental rights come with reasonable restrictions. Whether Aadhaar can be seen as a reasonable restriction has yet to be decided, he cautioned.

#Judges had earlier said that Indians are already providing vast troves of personal information to online platforms like Apple and Google. 

#The petitioners in the case  stressed that the Aadhaar database was originally presented as a purely voluntary programme that offered to provide every Indian with an identity card.

#The government says Aadhaar is essential for all services including tax returns, opening bank accounts and securing loans, pensions and cash transfers for those entitled to welfare schemes. It has rejected suggestions that the Aadhaar programme, set up in 2009 by the previous Congress-led government, poses a threat to civil liberties.

#Critics say the Aadhaar identity card links enough data to allow profiling because it creates a comprehensive profile of a person's spending habits, their friends and acquaintances, the property they own, and a trove of other information.

#There are fears the data could be misused by a government that argues Indians have no right to privacy. There have been recurring reports of Aadhaar details being accidentally released, including on government websites. UIDAI, the agency that governs Aadhaar, has repeatedly said that its data is secure.