Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said, the recent Supreme Court order on the right to privacy lays down the correct exemptions which protects Aadhar.
He was responding to a question from a student at the Columbia University in New York on how the government is planning to handle Aadhar after the recent Supreme Court decision on the right to privacy.
Mr Jaitley is in the United States to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In its judgement in August, a nine-judge bench decreed that that right to privacy is part of the fundamental rights to life and liberty enshrined in the Constitution.
The judgement has been interpreted by many as a setback to the Aadhar card, under which the government collects vital personal information of the citizens.
Mr Jaitley told students that judges also elaborated the exceptions to the law of privacy. He said, the first exception they say is national security and the second exception is detection and prevention of crime. The Finance Minister said, the third exception judges say is distribution of socio-economic benefits.
The minister said, the third exception had been carved out specifically to protect Aadhar. He said, there is a chapter in the Aadhar law which deals with certain aspects like the manner in which data is to be protected and the consequences of violation. Mr Jaitley asserted that all those safeguard provisions have been brought into the law.
Source: AIR