Five-judge constitution bench: Why does UIDAI need meta data

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The Supreme Court yesterday asked the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) why it needed to collect 'meta data' of personal transactions of citizens which go for Aadhaar authentication to avail services and benefits.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was responding to the submission of UIDAI that it collected only "limited technical meta data." "Why do you (UIDAI) have to retain meta data of personal transactions of persons entered through Aadhaar authentication," the bench asked.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for UIDAI said the petitioners, opposing the Aadhaar scheme, have completely "misunderstood the concept of meta data" and the UIDAI collected "limited technical meta data" to have control over the requesting entities (REs) which seek Aadhaar authentication for granting services and benefits.

The bench then asked him "So you are not collecting meta data about the person, but only about the machine," to which Dwivedi replied in affirmative.

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