Supreme Court Rules EC Can Protect Voter List Data, Rejects States’ Plea Against SIR

The Supreme Court expressed concern that making voters’ lists machine-readable could compromise privacy and allow third-party data mining. Justice Joymalya Bagchi suggested providing voters password-protected access to view only their individual data. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing NGO ADR, argued machine-readable lists do not allow manipulation and suggested using deduplication software to remove duplicates. The court emphasized the Electoral Commission (EC) holds the data in trust and can implement privacy layers. Notices were issued on petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, Puducherry, and Tamil Nadu, with hearings scheduled for November 26.