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31 Nat'l L. Sch. India Rev. 72 (2019)
A Critique of the Aadhaar Legal Framework

handle is hein.journals/nlsind31 and id is 84 raw text is: A CRITIQUE OF THE AADHAAR LEGAL FRAMEWORK -Vrinda Bliandari and Renuka Sane* Abstract This paper critically examines the legal frame- work consisting of the Aadhaar Act, the Aadhaar Ordinance, and the Aadhaar Regulations from the perspective of account- ability, delegation, and grievance redressal and enforce- ment. The paper finds that much is delegated to the Unique Identification Authority of India ('UIDAI') without adequate checks and balances. The UIDAI has further delegated the setting of several standards and procedures to its future self, suggesting that the process is operating in a legal vacuum. The accountability framework of the UIDAI remains weak and beset with conflict of interest, as there are no statutorily mandated accountability standards. This makes the perfor- mance of the UIDAI difficult to measure. Regulations relating to grievance redressal and enforcement are also weak. I. INTRODUCTION India, today, has the world's largest centralised database of personally identifiable biometric information. This is due to the nation-wide issuance of an Aadhaar number to all residents, after the collection of their biomet- rics (including fingerprints, iris scans, and photograph) and demographic data (including address and date of birth) since 2010. At current count, more than 1.2 billion Aadhaar numbers have been issued.' The genesis of the Aadhaar project was with the view that biometric-based authentication was essential to eliminating ghosts and duplicate beneficiar- ies that were a drag on the public welfare system. The Aadhaar number was Vrinda Bhandari is a practicing advocate in New Delhi and appeared on behalf of one of the Petitioners challenging the constitutionality of the Aadhaar Act and its Regulations. Renuka Sane is an associate professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. We thank Gautam Bhatia, Anirudh Burman, Pratik Datta, Shubho Roy, and Bhargavi Zaveri for useful discussions. All views expressed are personal. We also thankful to the anon- ymous peer reviewer, whose feedback was very helpful. All errors are our own. Aadhaar in numbers https://uidai.gov.in/ (last visited January 16, 2019).

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