“I would urge all of you, please read the Aadhaar act and the regulations,” UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said at the India Digital Summit last week, adding “What the underlying theme is that we have presumed that privacy is…whether privacy is a fundamental right or not is a question which will be answered by the Supreme Court, finally.” Pandey was responding to a question from MediaNama, which pointed out the Union of India’s statement in the Supreme Court that ‘Violation of privacy doesn’t mean anything because privacy is not a guaranteed right’, and asked about privacy protections in the law to prevent mass surveillance of citizens.

Pandey added that “We’ve presumed that the privacy is almost like a fundamental right. And if a fundamental right has to be protected, what protection measures should be there? So, whenever the hearing takes place, we are going to take this stand in the Supreme Court, saying that whether the privacy is a fundamental right or not doesn’t concern only Aadhaar, it concerns many other aspects. But so far as Aadhaar is concerned, please test the Aadhaar act on that standard, saying that presume that Privacy is a fundamental right, and whether whatever Aadhaar is doing meets that fundamental right criteria or not. And we’re very sure.”