The Supreme Court today directed the Union government to consider a representation alleging breach and commercial exploitation of statutory employment and financial data, including EPFO/UAN-linked records and PAN-linked information, by private verification entities.

A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana passed the order after hearing Senior Advocate Ruchi Kohli (for petitioner) in a PIL seeking restraint on unauthorized access, sharing, disclosure, transfer or misuse of EPFO/UAN-linked employment data, PAN-linked information, ITR/Form 26AS/AIS-linked financial data or other protected data.

The Court disposed of the petition, with a direction to the Union and other official-respondents to consider the petitioner's "comprehensive" representations and take necessary action to prevent misuse of data collected by EPFO and Income Tax Department.

"It will be appreciated if a comprehensive decision is taken preferably in [4 months]" the Court said.

Briefly put, the PIL was filed invoking Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution seeking to stop the unlawful disclosure of financial and statutory protected personal data of people. It raised concerns regarding an alleged unregulated digital employment-verification system in which private entities allegedly access, correlate, and commercially use data held by the EPFO and Income Tax Department.

The petitioner flagged commercially advertised services like "EPFO Passbook API", "Form 26AS API" and "Income Tax Return API", saying that they indicate prima facie existence of technological ecosystems claiming capability of access, retrieval, verification or processing of sensitive statutory employment and financial data. He claimed that in some private verification systems, mere furnishing of PAN and UAN details could facilitate retrieval of a person's employment history, without any OTP or explicit consent.

The petition mentioned that representations were sent by the petitioner to the Union Ministry of Labor and Employment, EPFO, MeiTY and CERT-IN, requesting examination of the manner in which such data, submitted under statutory compulsion and maintained within protected governmental systems, appeared to be accessible within private employment-verification ecosystems.

Further, representations were sent to the Union Ministry of Finance, the IT department, and the Central Board of Direct Taxes, raising concerns about possible access, use and reliance upon tax-related financial data in private employment verification and screening processes. These representations requested the authorities to consider if there is any lawful framework, technical interface, consent architecture, or systemic vulnerability through which the data is being accessed beyond statutory purposes.

Appearance: Senior Advocate Ruchi Kohli, AoR Varun Singh, Advocates Komalta Bhargava, Subhash Chhabra, and Abhinav Chhabra

Case: PIYUSH CHHABRA v. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. Diary No.30527/2026