Chennai: A petition has been filed in the Madras high court seeking direction to authorities of Central and state governments to make linking of Aadhaar as mandatory for creating email and social media accounts.
When the PIL filed by Antony Clement Rubia came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramanium Prasad, on Monday, the bench wondered under what constitutional right the petitioner was seeking such relief.
The bench said, “This is 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 persons and penalise them under appropriate law.”
According to petitioner, there is a pressing need for the administration, regulation and supervision of the 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 the way for tracking the individuals uploading multiple posts and memes.
He said the recent unforgettable misery, which took the lives of many children, was a game circulated through social media named ‘Blue Whale Challenge’.
It was a time when the administrators of the game as well as their targets were very difficult to find and locate, for the only reason that there was no record of the true identity of the users of social media accounts.
It is notable that any number of fake accounts could be created, and its actual impact on society is always unnoticed. As far as culpability is concerned, social media is more vulnerable as its contents are not regularised.
This increases the risk of incorrect reporting, and in turn, results in erroneous opinions based upon misleading facts. While contents of newspapers and the electronic media are reasonably verified, it is not done so when it comes to the social media.
The petitioner sought direction to declare linking of Aadhaar or any other of the government authorised identify proofs as mandatory for purpose of authentication while obtaining an e-mail or user account in social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, You Tune, Twitter or utility accounts such as PayTm, Uber, Ola and Gmail etc.
He sought to appoint a special and skilled task force to monitor the rising instances of all sorts of cyber stalking and to protect the innocent e-citizen.
The bench has directed the Union to file a reply and directed the appearance of the deputy superintendent of police in-charge of cyber-crime wing to explain the manner in which such complaints are dealt with, and the cooperation provided by the social media companies. The court then posted the PIL to August 20 for further hearing.
