NEW DELHI: Opponents of Aadhaar told the Supreme Court that although an Indian entity operates the unique identification system, its source code and proprietary technology are with foreign entities, arguing against creation of an electronic architecture that would allow the state to carry out realtime surveillance of citizens.“A foreign military contractor has developed it and has all the rights over the technology. It can take it all away tomorrow,” senior advocate Shyam Divan, lead lawyer for those opposing the biometrics-based identification system as reminiscent of the Orwellian state, told the court on Wednesday. “The proprietary technology belongs neither to the government or the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India),” he said.Arguing a host of petitions before a fivejudge Constitution bench challenging the validity of the Aadhaar Act, Divan claimed the technology had a GPS system embedded into it to facilitate quick authentication and location, a charge the UIDAI immediately contested. Divan sought to fault the scheme on several counts, but his key argument revolved around its mandatory, allpervasive nature, which he said made it reminiscent of a police state, a big brother.The bench comprising CJI Dipak Misra and justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, among others, asked whether the court could strike down a law on the grounds that it could be misused.“Are we second-guessing a scheme which began in 2009, a well-considered scheme that an executive government has put in place, given that nothing is secure any more? When you use Google maps or iPhones can we have these concerns?” Justice Chandrachud asked.Whether it could be used for unlimited purposes or for limited purposes sanctioned by law was another matter, he had said a day earlier.Responding to his remarks, Divan argued that no other country had implemented such an intrusive scheme on such a vast scale. “This completely violates the limited state concept enshrined in the Constitution,” he argued. “You cannot have a police state under our Constitution in which citizens have to lead a life under the gaze of the state.”Chandrachud asked whether these concerns were valid “when we have to live with terrorism, money laundering and `1,00,000 crore spent on social welfare schemes”.“You could well argue about extraneous state interest,” he said.Divan resisted this saying that even in a highly digital, networked world sharing data with one private entity for a limited purpose would not imply necessarily that the person sharing the data had given up his right to keep the information secret for other purposes.He also questioned the repeated authentication of the biometrics at the instance of several private players. This will leave the citizen exposed, he argued. He said that it was incumbent on the state to be an ally of citizens against non-state actors.