Willing to Make Changes to UIDAI’s Social Media Plan: Centre to SC

The central government said it will try to accommodate suggestions raised in the PIL filed by TMC’s Mohua Moitra.

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(Photo: Erum Gour/The Quint)

Attorney General KK Venugopal on Tuesday, 11 September, told the Supreme Court that the central government is willing to change the terms of the social media monitoring proposed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs the Aadhaar scheme, and will try to accommodate the suggestions raised in the PIL filed by Trinamool Congress MLA Mohua Moitra, reported ANI.

The top court will now hear the matter next week, with the Attorney General reportedly saying that a detailed affidavit in this regard will be filed by the government with the changes incorporated.

WHAT HAPPENED ON 7 SEPT?

On 7 September, the Supreme Court said the proposal of the UIDAI to hire a social media agency to monitor such platforms was contrary to its earlier submissions, reported PTI.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud also asked Attorney General KK Venugopal to assist it in the hearing of the plea on the issue filed by Mohua Moitra.

“It (monitoring) is directly against the submissions made by the UIDAI during the hearing of the Aadhaar matters,” the bench said, adding that what the UIDAI was proposing was contrary to “what it had argued while seeking validity of Aadhaar”.

The UIDAI, during the hearing of a clutch of petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar scheme, had told the apex court that it did not want to monitor the online activities of citizens holding Aadhaar cards.

WHAT DID THE PLEA SAY?

The plea of TMC leader Mohua Moitra said the UIDAI, as per its bid document, was seeking to hire a social media agency that will employ 'online reputation management' and 'social listening' tools to monitor and influence conversations related to Aadhaar on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

She had alleged that the move of hiring a social media monitoring agency aimed at "mounting surveillance on social media platforms", reported PTI.

Such action of the government violates her right of privacy. The scope of work of the Social Media Agency intended to be selected through the impugned request for proposal (RFP) is in the teeth of the judgment laid down by this Court in KS Puttaswamy case, wherein a bench of nine judges of this court recognised privacy as a fundamental right under the Constitution

The plea, as quoted by PTI

(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)