Heena Sharma Blog

Should Aadhaar be used as KYC for social media accounts? We have recently seen a debate on this question with even the courts hearing arguments in favour and against such a move. The case began in Madras High Court and later Facebook moved the SC seeking transfer of the petition to the Apex court. The original petition was filed in July, 2018 and sought linking of Aadhaar numbers with user accounts to further traceability of messages. Before we try and answer this question, we need to first understand the differences between the different types of data on social media and messaging platforms. If a crime happens on an end to end cryptographically secure channel like WhatsApp the police may request the following from the provider to help solve the case: 1.Identity data: Phone numbers of the accused. Names and addresses of the accused. 2.Metadata: Sender, receiver(s), time, size of message, flag identifying a forwarded messages, delivery status, read status, etc. 3.Payload ...

Just 230 million PAN card holders -- over half of the total PAN card holders -- have so far linked their cards with biometric ID Aadhaar, even as the deadline to link the two comes to an end on March 31, 2019. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra said the Income Tax department has so far issued 420 million permanent account numbers (PAN), of which 230 million have been linked with Aadhaar. Supreme Court has made it mandatory that Income Tax returns will be filed with Aadhaar and the last date for linking PAN with Aadhaar is March 31. "By linking with Aadhaar, We will know whether there are any duplicate PAN or not. And there are certain duplicate PANs... If it is not linked, we may cancel the PAN also," Chandra said while addressing an Assocham event. The Supreme Court in September last year had declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid. A five-judge constitution bench had held that while Aadhaar w...

The Supreme Court has said that linkage of PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory for filing of Income Tax returns . A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said the top court has already decided the matter and upheld the section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. The court's direction came on an appeal filed by the Centre against a Delhi High Court order allowing two persons, Shreya Sen and Jayshree Satpute, to file Income Tax returns for 2018-19 without linking their Aadhaar and PAN numbers. "The aforesaid order was passed by the High Court having regard to the fact that the matter was pending consideration in this Court. Thereafter, this Court has decided the matter and upheld the vires of section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. In view thereof, linkage of PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory," the bench said. The top court noted that with regard to Assessment Year 2018-19, it has been informed that the two petitioners had filed the Income Tax returns in terms of...

Have you linked your voter ID with Aadhaar yet? Soon, linking of voter ID with Aadhaar maybe made mandatory. According to a report published in Economic Times, the Election Commission, in a shift in its stand, is preparing to pitch for the mandatory, legally backed, linking of voter IDs with Aadhaar number . "The commission will propose amendments to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, that will require citizens to link their Electoral Photo ID Card (EPIC) with the 12-digit Aadhaar, while ensuring privacy protection," the report said. In October, EC informed the Madras High Court it had no object linking Aadhaar with electoral rolls and voter ID card as sought in a public interest litigation to check bogus and invalid entries. The commission, however, said a decision has to be taken keeping in view the recent Supreme Court order on the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme. Read More Business Standard

Days after the Supreme Court imposed curbs on the use of Aadhaar, biometric-issuing authority UIDAI Monday asked telecom companies to submit, within the next 15 days, a plan to stop using the 12-digit unique ID number for customer authentication. A circular to this effect has already been issued to the telecom service providers (TSPs), including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and others. The communication, seen by PTI, says: "...all TSPs are called upon to immediately take actions in order to comply with the judgement dated 26.09.2018. In this regard, TSPs are hereby directed to submit by 15th October, 2018 an action plan/exit plan to the authority for closure of use of Aadhaar based authentication systems..." The Supreme Court, last week, struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which allowed private companies to use the 12-digit biometric ID-based eKYC. Following this, private companies like telecom operators will not be able to use this ins...

Over 210.8 million permanent account numbers (PANs) have been linked with Aadhaar till now, the latest data revealed as the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the linkage between the two databases Wednesday. According to official figures accessed by PTI, a total of 21,08,16,676 PANs issued by the Income Tax Department have been linked with Aadhaar till Monday. According to the latest data, out of the over 410.2 million PANs issued, an overwhelming number of more than 400 million PANs are held by individuals. ALSO READ: SC declares Aadhaar constitutionally valid, strikes down some provisions The rest are in the name of companies and other categories of taxpayers, the official said, adding the figure reflects that about 50 per cent of the PANs have been linked with Aadhaar till now. The deadline to link the two databases has been extended five times in the past in view of the apex court order to keep it open till a five-judge constitution bench delivers its judg...

The Supreme Court Wednesday declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as Constitutionally valid. The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach the marginalised sections of the society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also from the community point of view. The top court said Aadhaar is serving much bigger public interest and Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than being best. The verdict was pronounced on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law. The bench had on May 10 reserved the verdict on the matter after a marathon hearing that went on for 38 days, spanning four-and-half months. ALSO READ: Supreme Court declares Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid Catch All Live Updates Here Article Source >> BS