BENGALURU: Former IPS officer filed public interest litigation (PIL) in Karnataka High Court, seeking that the Government of India (GoI) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) permit the police to use demographic information of individuals available under Aadhaar, to identify unidentified dead bodies.
Hearing the petition filed by former IGP Syed Ulfath Hussain, who served the police department for over 33 years, the division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S R Krishna Kumar issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Electronics, UIDAI, Home Department, Government of Karnataka and the Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG & IGP).
The court in response said the question is whether the Government of India and UIDAI can be compelled to furnish demographic information on dead bodies whenever a request is received from the police.
According to the stand taken by the UIDAI on September 6, 2019, sharing of Aadhaar information without the consent of the Aadhaar holder is not allowed and hence, the use of Aadhaar information to identify unidentified dead bodies is not feasible, the court said.
“The state, the GoI and UIDAI will have to make their respective stand very clear. Accordingly, we direct them to file objections on or before November 18, 2019, the next date of hearing”, the court said.
The petitioner contended that sharing Aadhaar demographic information of the deceased persons will not cause any hardship to any person.
How to identify bodies using Aadhaar data?
According to the petitioner, the police on finding a dead body would be able to obtain finger prints of the body and forward the same to the UIDAI for authentication of biometric data. The UIDAI can thereafter authenticate the finger prints from their data stored in the CIDR on identifying the demographic data of the dead persons. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Electronics and UIDAI can forward the same to the police for further action.