HYDERABAD: Concerns of privacy are being raised by activists, after it was learnt that the State government was seeking sensitive details, such as Aadhaar number and caste of property holders, as part of its survey for the Dharani portal.
The State government would take up the said survey using an app called TS-NPB. A training document for officials on how to use the app is available on the web.
The document titled “Non-agricultural Properties Updation APP For Officials (GP/ULB) User Document” shows that the government is seeking sensitive information, including the caste of the property holder and their Aadhaar number.
In fact, the Aadhaar details of their family members are also sought.
The document categorically says that an official has to seed the Aadhaar number of a person through the pattadar passbook number.
If the property holder does not have the pattadar passbook, then the official has to pull the Aadhaar number from other identity documents, like food security card, Jandhan account, Aasara pension and so on.
As for a joint property owner, the Aadhaar number of the joint account too has to be fed in the TS-NPB app.
The Supreme Court has said that the government can only ask for Aadhaar details of a person for welfare schemes.
The survey in question is basically a database, point out activists. Independent security researcher Srinivas Kodali said, “The linking of Aadhaar with land ownership is primarily done to profile people and their financial assets. The Supreme Court judgement on Aadhaar clearly restricts its usage to welfare systems. The linking of Aadhaar with land records by Telangana government is unlawful.”
Terming it as a “backdoor attempt to collect data”, social activist Shiba Minai said, “I see no benefit in this. The State government had earlier conducted a survey for Samagra Kutumba in 2014. Many people were inconvenienced. You have all the details from that survey. What happened to that data?”