[Marxistindia] Sitaram Yechury writes to CEC, ECI on the concerns of Voter ID Aadhar linking

[news from the cpi(m)]

August 5, 2022

Press Release        

 

Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
has written the following letter today to the Chief Election Commissioner,
Election Commission of India on the concerns of security, privacy and voter
deletions with the Aadhar Voter ID linking. We are herewith releasing the
text of the letter for publication.

(For CPI(M) Central Committee office)

________________________________________________________________

Dear Sir,                

The Election Commission of India has re-started the process of linking
Aadhaar with Voter ID. It is publicly acknowledged that this process of
linking Aadhaar with Voter ID was already carried out in 2015, part of
National Electoral Rolls Purification - Authentication Programme until the
Supreme Court stopped this process.  

As part of this exercise several Chief Electoral Officers across the country
have obtained the Aadhaar data of voters from several other databases like
NPR, PDS and State Resident Data Hubs(SRDH). These electoral offices linked
Aadhaar with Voter ID of 31 crore voters without informing the individual
voters and instead using algorithms to automatically link them based on
already existing data. This process has resulted in voter deletions across
the country and in particular in the state of Telangana, where the NERP-AP
exercise of Aadhaar with Voter ID was originally developed. This process has
resulted in voter deletions that have affected several genuine voters across
the Telangana state during the 2018 assembly elections. Further there have
been data breaches of Voter IDs linked to Aadhaar in states of Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana. 

With all these previous electoral mis-practices with regard to Aadhaar, the
lack of consultations with political parties before the start of this
process is concerning. India currently does not have a data protection or
privacy law and neither does the Election Commission of India have a privacy
policy with regards to maintenance of Aadhaar data of voters. The stated
purpose of the Aadhaar voter ID linking is primarily to remove duplicate
voters, but with concerns of duplicate Aadhaar raised by CAG in its report
on UIDAI, this is a hasty exercise. The lack of all due procedures from
Election Commission of India and a hasty process to link Aadhaar of every
voter will lead to incidents that have previously occurred like the deletion
of genuine voters. 

          The lack of data security, voter deletions and subjecting the data
with the election commission data to various state surveillance databases is
violative of the Representation of People's Act. It is the duty of the
Election Commission of India to investigate these serious lapses in voter
deletions and data breaches that occurred. The Election Commission of India
is mandated to protect the constitutional rights of the voters. Until the
Election Commission produces an investigation report into these incidents,
and comes out with a clear checks and balances this linking exercise must be
kept under abeyance.

The Election Commission must delete all the Aadhaar data collected before
the amendments to the Representation of People's Act in 2021 allowing this
linking procedure. As the officials have carried the previous linking
without due information to the voters, we demand that every voter whose
Aadhaar was already linked with Voter ID be notified. As this entire linking
exercise is voluntary, the voters should be allowed to exercise their right
to de-link their Aadhaar. The entire technical process, privacy policies,
including code and manuals for linking and delinking of Aadhaar Voter ID
needs to be published and shared with all political parties and public
before this exercise starts.

          With the lack of a data protection law, we oppose any potential
sharing of all Voter-IDs linked with Aadhaar to be shared with the Ministry
of Home Affairs for either for the purpose of building the NATGRID database,
the National Population Registry, the National Registry of Citizens and any
new and upcoming databases of birth and death registries. We oppose usage of
this data collected only for electoral purposes to be used for other
purposes and demand a purpose limitation for this data. The Election
Commission of India must ensure the need for privacy practices. 

                             

          The purpose of this data collection and usage has to be limited
only for de-duplication of voters and that too cannot be mandatory as per
the Supreme Court judgement in Puttaswamy Vs Union of India (2018). In this
regard, the Commission needs to instruct all Chief Electoral Officers,
District Electoral Officers, Electoral Registration Officers, Assistant
Electoral Registration Officers of all the data practices and privacy
practices that need to be followed by its officials. Any violations of these
practices must be strictly dealt by the EC.

 

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,

 

 

(Sitaram Yechury)

General Secretary

 

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