India's apex court has ruled that biometrics are no needed to file tax return, in a decision likely to please privacy advocates.The court said taxpayers who have opted out of getting an Aadhaar (foundation) number should not be forced to get one.It added that people's tax identification cards, which do not need biometrics, will continue to be legal even if they are not linked to Aadhaar.The court also said the government must do more to allay data theft fears.The court was hearing petitions against the government's plan to effectively replace tax identification cards, know as PAN (Permanent Account Number) cards, with Aadhaar.”Today, anybody can get a PAN card with any name on it. A person can get several PAN cards – say, as Mukesh Gupta, then another as Mukesh Kumar Gupta, and a third as M K Gupta, so on and so forth,” The Indian Express quotes Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi as saying.A month ago, the Supreme Court said an Aadhaar ID will have to be listed along with tax returns, but this decision means it will not be mandatory.But the petitioners say the government cannot forcibly take people's biometric details. Activists have also raised concerns over the security of what can be described as the world's biggest biometric database.Over the past eight years, the government has collected fingerprints and iris scans from more than a billion residents – or nearly 90% of the population – and stored them in a high security data centre.In return, each person has been provided with a randomly generated, unique 12-digit identity number.
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