Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Linking of UID & social media accounts violates privacy, says Madras HC
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:  14.08.2018

The Madras high court on Monday termed the relief sought through a PIL ‘dangerous’ as it wanted the Union government to declare the linking of Aadhaar compulsory for authentication while creating email and social media accounts.

“There is a pressing need for administration, regulation and supervision of social media, specially, on abusive and derogatory posts, comments and memes which further promotes misinformation and propaganda. Taking note of these factors, particularly their unhealthy effects thereof, mandating Aadhaar is considered to be the most practical way of addressing the menace and imposing stringent penalties, as it paves way for tracking individual identities uploading multiple posts and memes,” petitioner Antony Clement Rubia said.

When the PIL came up for admission before a division bench of Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad, the bench wondered under what constitutional right the petitioner was seeking such relief.

“This a dangerous relief. It would affect the right to privacy of every individual. If the petitioner faces any such issue he can very well file a complaint with the police concerned and definitely they can track such people and penalize under appropriate law,” the bench said.

The court then directed the Centre to file a reply and directed the appearance of deputy superintendent of police incharge of the cybercrime wing to explain the manner in which such complaints are dealt with and the cooperation provided by social media companies. The court then posted the PIL to August 20 for further hearing.

According to the petitioner, the recent unforgettable misery which took lives of many young children was a game circulated through the social media named ‘Blue Whale Challenge’. “It was a time when the administrators of the game as well as the targets were difficult to locate, because there was no record of the true identity of users of social media accounts,” he added.

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