Section 57 (Aadhaar Act, Struck Down)
Definition
The provision of the Aadhaar Act 2016 that permitted private companies and individuals to require Aadhaar authentication for their own purposes, struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2018 Aadhaar judgment as disproportionate and lacking sufficient public-interest justification.
- Statute
- Aadhaar Act 2016, s.57, struck down
- Struck down by
- Supreme Court of India, 2018 Aadhaar judgment
- Effect
- Barred mandatory private-party Aadhaar use
- Field
- Privacy and consent law
Common questions
Why did the Supreme Court strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act?+
The Court held that letting private companies and individuals compel Aadhaar authentication for their own purposes was disproportionate, lacked sufficient public-interest justification, and risked profiling and misuse of biometric data.
What was the practical effect of striking down Section 57 for private businesses?+
Businesses such as telecom operators and other private entities could no longer make Aadhaar-based authentication a mandatory condition for their services, reshaping how identity verification is done in the private sector.
How does the Section 57 ruling relate to the Puttaswamy privacy judgment?+
The Section 57 decision applied the right to privacy recognized in the earlier Puttaswamy judgment, using its proportionality test to assess whether extending Aadhaar's reach into private transactions was constitutionally justified.
Related terms
- Consent Imbalance
- The structural condition recognised by EU data-protection authorities and courts under which formal consent to biometric collection is not freely given because...
- DPDP Act S.17(2) Exemptions
- Provisions of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 allowing the Central Government to exempt State instrumentalities from the Act's requirements in...
- Informational Privacy
- The dimension of the right to privacy, articulated in Justice Chandrachud's Puttaswamy 2017 opinion, that grants individuals the right to control information...
- Proportionality Test (Puttaswamy)
- The four-part standard from Puttaswamy 2017 for assessing the constitutionality of state interference with privacy: (1) legitimate state aim, (2) suitability of...
- Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (UK)
- UK statute enacted in direct response to S and Marper v. UK, which reformed the retention framework for DNA profiles, fingerprints, and...
- Puttaswamy 2017
- Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1: nine-judge bench Supreme Court of India judgment holding that privacy...
- R (Bridges) V. Chief Constable of South Wales Police (2020)
- UK Court of Appeal decision holding that the deployment of automated facial recognition by South Wales Police lacked a sufficiently clear and...
- S and Marper V. UK (2008)
- European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber judgment holding that indefinite retention of fingerprints, cellular samples, and DNA profiles of unconvicted individuals...
- UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India)
- The statutory authority established by the Aadhaar Act 2016 to operate the Aadhaar biometric identification system, oversee enrolment, and administer the authentication...