DC Edit | Ensure Citizens’ Data Protected

The decision of the Election Commission of India to discuss the possibility of linking elector photo identity card to Aadhaar number of all the voters with the Union government is to be welcomed as it forms part of the poll body’s efforts to make the election process foolproof. The need to come up with a better system to maintain the sanctity of the voters list, which is the first and most important step towards ensuring a fair election, has been felt after the Trinamul Congress came up with solid proof of the existence of duplicate voter identity cards. Linking the Aadhaar number to the voter identity card is indeed a way to ensure that there is no duplication of the document but the Aadhaar system itself has too many flaws. No government, neither the United Progressive Alliance government which introduced it nor the NDA government which gave it some legal sanctity, thought it necessary to come up with comprehensive legislation that will address several issues, including data privacy, so that it can be a single point reference to the identity of a citizen.