UIDAI seeks indemnity from Data Bill

UIDAI seeks indemnity from Data Bill

Part of: Prelims and GS II – Governance

Context The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has asked for exemption from the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law.

• In an interaction with the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Data Protection Bill 2019, UIDAI functionaries said the authority is already being governed by the Aadhaar Act and there cannot be duplicity of laws.

About Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law

• The law is a comprehensive piece of legislation that seeks to give individuals greater control over how their personal data is collected, stored and used. 
• The Bill also establishes a Data Protection Authority for the same.

Genesis of the Bill 

• The genesis of this Bill lies in the report prepared by a Committee of Experts headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna.
• The committee was constituted by the government in the course of hearings before the Supreme Court in the right to privacy case (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India).

Contentious section 35

• Section 35, which invokes “sovereignty and integrity of India,” “public order”, “friendly relations with foreign states” and “security of the state” to give powers to the Central government to suspend all or any of the provisions of this Act for government agencies.

About UIDAI

• UIDAI was created with the objective to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as “Aadhaar”, to all residents of India that is:
  • robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities
  • can be verified and authenticated in an easy, cost-effective way.
• It is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016.
• Under the Aadhaar Act 2016, UIDAI is responsible for
  • Aadhaar enrolment and authentication
  • Developing system for issuing Aadhaar numbers 
  • Perform authentication 
  • To ensure the security of identity information 
• Ministry: Electronics & IT ministry.