New Delhi: Many civil rights activist as well as other common people argue that the 12-digit unique identification Aadhaar number infringes on the fundamental rights of citizens and compromises their privacy.

“British colonialism treated certain tribes as criminal and recorded, with police force, the bio-metric information of every member of those tribes. Extending the scheme to the entire country, now, and attaching a magnetic collar to every citizen, the modern state of India is turning the entire country into a single animal farm,” civil engineer Ratnakar Mishra, 29, told Gulf News.

As many as 98 per cent of Indians already have Aadhaar card or have applied for the same. The privacy concerns, however, persist.

“The identification project was rolled out roughly a decade ago to plug leakages in government schemes but many people in India are flagging privacy concerns with Aadhaar that is seen as vulnerable to data breaches and government spying. A lot of such cases have already come to light recently where data was stolen or made public,” civil rights activist Rashmi Khurana, 35, said.

However, some people feel demonising Aadhaar is not going to solve any problem.

“The government and departments are simply following the law passed by Parliament. The government is right to demand Aadhaar from beneficiaries of state-run schemes such as midday meal or subsidies but no one should be denied entitlements because of lack of a unique identity number,” banker Ravi Sharma, 38, said.

A cross section of the society feels Aadhaar was developed for targeted delivery of subsidies and services to individuals in India by assigning them unique identity numbers. But, with the government linking it to most services, it cannot be called voluntary anymore.

“The recent amendments in the Finance Bill make it seem the government is violating the Supreme Court order dated August 11, 2015 which prevents making Aadhaar mandatory. The government simply cannot and should not try to circumvent the orders of the Supreme Court,” Kashmir-based trader Rameez Pandit, 29, told the Gulf News.

Architect Kanhaiya Das, 44, says “the apex Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the benefits cannot be denied for not having Aadhaar but has cleared the use of the ID for non-benefit schemes such as opening of bank accounts. The government needs to be mindful of this.”

Chartered accountant Dev Bishnoi, 51, says the government created the false impression that as the Aadhaar Act was passed, the Supreme Court’s orders no longer applied.

“This is wrong because on September 14, 2016, after the passage of the Act in March 2016, the court reiterated its October 2015 order that said Aadhaar was voluntary,” said Bishnoi.