Supreme Court Declares Right to Digital Identity a Fundamental Right under Article 21

In a transformative judgment, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has declared the 'Right to Digital Identity' a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The Court observed that in the hyper-digitalized economy of 2026, the inability to prove one’s identity in the digital realm—termed 'digital invisibility'—is equivalent to civil death. The ruling stems from petitions highlighting how citizens without secure digital credentials were being excluded from essential services, ranging from healthcare and tele-education to digital banking and social security transfers. The Court held that the right to a dignified life is no longer limited to physical existence but extends to a person’s digital persona. It emphasized that the state has a positive obligation to provide every citizen with a secure, verifiable, and privacy-protected digital identity.