A Guide to Litigating Identity Systems
informational privacy as “the right to an individual to disseminate certain
personal information for limited purposes alone.”65
b) The majority opinion in Aadhaar similarly focuses on the implication of the
informational privacy component of the right to privacy in its own
discussion of the right to privacy,66 although the majority finds the
interference with informational privacy to be proportional to the public
benefit achieved by the system.67 The majority describes informational
privacy as privacy that “protects a person by giving her control over the
dissemination of material that is personal to her and disallowing
unauthorised use of such information by the State.”68
c) Justice Sykes of the Supreme Court of Jamaica references informational
privacy expressly in stating: “compulsory taking of any biometric data is a
violation of the right to privacy – privacy of the person, informational
privacy.”69
d) The Kenyan High Court grounds its privacy right analysis in the concept of
informational privacy.70 The court describes informational privacy as
“rights of control a person has over personal information,” which “closely
relates to the personal and is regarded as intimate, and which a person
would want to restrict the collection, use and circulation thereof.”71
Building on this focus, the court finds that some types of personal data
collected by the Kenyan national identity system – particularly DNA
information and GPS coordinates – are “personal, sensitive and intrusive”
and therefore require protection.72
65
Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 29 of dissent.
66
See Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 287 at 357.
67
Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 308 at 376.
68
Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 83 at 164.
69
Opinion of Justice Sykes, ¶ 247(A)(10).
70
See Huduma Namba Judgment, Nubian Rights Forum and Others v. The Hon. Attorney General, Consolidated
Petitions No. 56, 58 & 59 of 2019 ¶ 750 (2020).
71
Huduma Namba Judgment, ¶ 750.
72
Huduma Namba Judgment, ¶ 772.
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