Supreme Court Asks Government to Prevent Private Misuse of PF and Tax Data
· India · Times of India, Hindustan Times
The Supreme Court expressed concern over a commercial technological ecosystem that accesses and verifies sensitive individual information regarding provident fund and income tax returns. Hearing a PIL filed by Piyush Sharma, a bench led by CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana noted that private entities access sovereign data without OTP authentication, explicit consent, or identity verification workflows. The petitioner pointed out that furnishing PAN and UAN details to private verification platforms yields complete employment histories for moonlighting detection and labour market profiling. While acknowledging the matter falls within the policy domain, the court asked the Centre to take necessary steps to prevent such misuse by private enterprises.
Why it matters
The Supreme Court's intervention addresses systemic vulnerabilities in statutory employment and financial databases, directly protecting individual privacy from commercial exploitation by private verification firms.
Read the original report — Times of India
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