The petition claimed that the Social Media Agency was nothing but an online surveillance tool in the hands of the UIDAI to monitor negative sentiments on social media platforms and blogs.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) informed the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday that a Social Media Agency which is to be set up for online content monitoring will search content on 'Aadhaar' a minimum of one lakh times a month with no maximum limit.
Issuing a corrigendum modifying its earlier notification of July 18, the UIDAI informed the SC that this should settle the concerns raised in a petition by Trinamool Congress MLA Mahua Moitra. The petition claimed that the Social Media Agency was nothing but an online surveillance tool in the hands of the UIDAI to monitor negative sentiments on social media platforms and blogs. This would also lead to segregation of negative and positive content causing profiling of individuals, argued the petition filed by advocate Mohammad Nizam Pasha.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, which raised doubts on the earlier date on such a tool invading citizens' privacy, directed Attorney General KK Venugopal to file an affidavit on all possible modifications to the notification. Venugopal said he was open to incorporate suggestions of the petitioner as well.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared for Moitra pointed out that the corrigendum of UIDAI is not available on its website and the same had just been handed to him. He termed it as a cosmetic change and demanded that the same should also be withdrawn by the Centre as it had withdrawn its decision to roll back the plan proposed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to set up a Social Media Hub. This was challenged before the apex court and on August 3 and the Centre's withdrawal brought the case to a close.
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