A Guide to Litigating Identity Systems
d) The Supreme Court of the Philippines did not employ a proportionality
framework like this, but the court emphasised the absence of safeguards
in finding that the state’s objectives in instituting an identity system did
not justify the system’s infringement on privacy.157 The Philippine court
would require a compelling state interest and proper safeguards;158 a
similar but conceptually different standard.
45. The “bread v. freedom�� argument, where derogations of individual rights are
justified by improved access to basic needs, does not justify an identity
system’s infringement of the right to privacy because privacy rights and
economic rights are not mutually exclusive. The state must protect both
rights.
a) The dissent in the Aadhaar judgment specifically makes this argument,
finding that the state has failed to demonstrate why the Aadhaar
system’s benefits to the welfare scheme require the system’s
infringements on privacy.159
157 Blas F. Ople, Part III at 6.
158 Blas F. Ople, Part III at 6.
159 Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 254 of dissent.
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