According to the whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former employee of NSA programme in the USA, if Aadhaar data is used for other purposes except for public services, the government of India must slap a penalty on the people using them.

During an address through video-conference, he challenged the government of India to guarantee the implementation of Aadhaar for the welfare of public if it is serious about it and punish those who are misusing the data by implementing “criminal penalty”.

While talking via video-conference at the fifth edition of ‘Talk Journalism’ event organized in Jaipur last weekend, he said that the mass surveillance system would look similar to Aadhaar as it creates systemization of society. He added that the point of systemization of society is such that it was not stated in the scheme of things for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Responding to a question over the issue of surveillance, he commented that no government in the world will outrightly convey to its citizens that they have decided about you have no rights. Instead, they will say that that they are implementing a new kind of programme that will help safeguard people’s rights and protect them.

Talking about privacy, the 35-year old told that it’s a myth that youngsters don’t concern over their privacy. Youngsters have their concerns over their privacy issues, he said. He also went deep into the issue of privacy and said that citizens are not required to explain to the government why do they need to keep privacy, but it’s the government that needs to explain to them why people don’t need to have rights.

According to the former CIA employee, “we have privacy issues” because it provides an opportunity to get help from the issue for those who violate it. Better encryption systems and a strong legal system can help safeguard privacy, he added.

Edward Joseph Snowden is a computer professional from the USA and was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. Apart from that, he was also a former contractor for the United States government and there he copied and leaked several classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) back in 2013 without any authorization from higher officials. The data he leaked disclosed numerous surveillance programs. Majority of such programmes were being operated by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the crucial help of telecommunication companies belonging to the USA and European governments.

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