Expressing concern that making the voter list available in a machine-readable format may compromise privacy and expose it to mining by third parties, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought to know whether it is possible to provide each voter with a password that would allow him to see only his individual data.
“It biases itself, which is publicly available data, for mining by the individual or any agency. To that extent, it raises “issues of individual privacy, and issues of collective protection of data of Indian citizens.” This is not hostile. Justice Joymalia Bagchi, who was part of a two-judge bench hearing petitions challenging the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls in various states, said.
Justice Bagchi said this while advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing an NGO called Association for Democratic Rights (ADR), one of the petitioners, had submitted that the EC was refusing to provide the 2003 voters list in a machine-readable form. He said presenting the lists in a machine-readable format would not cause any bias. The lawyer told the court headed by Justice Surya Kant that the ability to automatically read any list does not allow anyone to “tamper” with that list.
Justice Bagchi said: “Again, you are looking at this from an adversarial point of view relating to the data to the extent that it affects the right of the person seeking to vote. Regardless, the data itself is a valuable asset held in trust by the European Commission…”
Those with significant computer resources can also convert it into a machine-readable format, Bhushan said, and wondered why the European Commission should fight so timidly. Justice Bagchi said: “Mr. Bhushan, if you lock your house, yet the lock can be broken. Would that be a justification for not locking the house?” “Data is a valuable asset entrusted to the European Commission. The European Commission is therefore entitled to layers of data privacy…”
Regarding the submission that voters would have to go through the entire list to find their details, Justice Bagchi said: “What you might be proposing, and that is we are making a very general suggestion even for the European Commission to consider that an individual might have a password to access the data. This is how an individual can verify their data on the European Commission’s encrypted database and thus respond to the European Commission’s queries in the context of the SIR. It’s a matter of discussing this and finding out the best possible solution. We want you to take your time on that and give us a point.” “Your considered consideration.” The court also upheld Bhushan’s suggestion that the European Commission should use deduplication software to get rid of duplicate names. “This is a good suggestion,” Justice Surya Kant said while seeking the commission’s response. There should be no problem with that.”
Bhushan said the EC should be told it could not determine the nationality of voters through the SIR, but Justice Kant said: “If they have the power, they will determine. If not, they will not. That issue will arise in the final question.” The bench issued notice on appeals challenging the SIR process in West Bengal, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. The court will hear this matter on November 26. At the request of the European Commission, the Supreme Court asked the High Courts to stay the petitions submitted to it in relation to the SIR process while it considers the matter.
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“Since this court has considered the matter relating to the validity of SIR for electoral rolls in various states, including Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, etc., we request the judicial high courts to stay/adjourn the writ proceedings if any filed in those high courts touching on the validity of SIR in their states,” the bench ordered.
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