<h1>Legal risks of a consolidated welfare beneficiary database linked to national IDs and monetisation of anonymised data</h1> A state government proposes creating a consolidated welfare beneficiary database linked to unique IDs derived from national identity numbers and to monetise anonymised non-personal data with private firms. Key legal issues include compliance with identity-linkage restrictions under the national ID regime, adequacy of anonymisation to prevent re-identification, lawful grounds for sharing data held by tax and vehicle registries, and applicability of national privacy/data-protection standards and sectoral laws governing health and tax records. Contractual safeguards, purpose limitation, data-minimisation, transparency, independent audit, and clear liability and redress mechanisms will be critical if monetisation proceeds without explicit consent or statutory authority.