India's 🇮🇳 top court ⚖ rules privacy as fundamental right

India's 🇮🇳 Supreme Court, ruled ⚖ that citizens have constitutional right to privacy, a landmark verdict that could derail a controversial biometric identification programme that the government is pushing on its people.

A nine-judge bench ruled unanimously 👍🏻 on Thursday that the right to privacy was "protected as an intrinsic part of Article 21 that protects life and liberty", in a case that challenges Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to make biometric ID cards, known as Aadhaar, mandatory.

Aadhaar, which has recorded the fingerprints and iris scans of more than one billion Indians, was set up as a voluntary scheme to streamline benefit payments 💸 to millions of poor people and cut 🚫 fraud.

Activists say Aadhaar links enough data 💻 to create a comprehensive profile of a person's spending habits, their friends and acquaintances, the property they own, and a trove of other information.

UCJ, UNILORIN.