Aadhaar-social media linking case: Next SC hearing to take place on 13 September

It was recently suggested by the Tamil Nadu government that if social media platforms are linked with Aadhaar numbers, it would be easy to check the circulation of fake, defamatory and pornographic content, anti-national and terror material.The Madras High Court has now adjourned the public interest litigation (PIL) regarding this case to 19 September. It was decided by the Supreme Court earlier that it will hear Facebook's plea for the transfer of cases related to demands for the linking of social media profiles of users with their Aadhaar numbers, pending before the High Courts of Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh to the apex court. The Supreme Court allowed Madras High Court to continue the hearing of this case but not to pass the final order.(Also read: Aadhaar-social media linking case: Major developments leading up to Supreme Court's nod to hear Facebook's plea)[caption id="attachment_7204801" align="alignnone" width="1024"]

The Supreme Court ordered the Madras High Court to hear Aadhaar- social media linking case but not to pass the final order. Image: Reuters[/caption]The next Supreme Court hearing is scheduled for 13 September.Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Tamil Nadu government told the Madras High Court that Facebook claims that origins of WhatsApp messages cannot be traced as the messages are end-to-end encrypted, but with the help of an IIT professor, they have found that this is not the case. According to him, the originator of a message can be traced by linking social media profiles of users with their Aadhaar numbers.On this, Facebook says that it cannot share the Aadhaar number with a third party as the content on WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and even they do not have access to it.