In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Friday, December 9, 2011

2044 - UPA's pet UID project set to be trashed - India Today

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi 
hand a tribal woman her UID card.

A parliamentary committee is set to reject the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010, inflicting a severe blow to Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani and raising doubts about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's pet project.

Former IT czar Nilekani, who holds cabinet minister rank as UIDAI chief, had been keen on the enactment of the Bill so that a statutory National Identification Authority could be established. The Bill, tabled in December last year, is geared to bolster the Aadhaar scheme under which every Indian " resident" will be assigned a unique ID (UID) number.

Parliament's standing committee on finance, headed by Yashwant Sinha of the BJP, held deliberations on the controversial Bill for a year. 

Among those it consulted were experts and representatives of government departments. 

Nilekani had also appeared before the parliamentary committee and given his views on the subject.

The committee's draft report giving the thumbs down to the Bill is ready and will be adopted on Thursday. Sources in the panel indicated that the decision to recommend that the government should withdraw the present Bill and bring a new one was taken "unanimously". Even Congress members found the project "directionless".

It is learnt that the draft report has recommended that the government should review or reconsider the project by a bringing in a fresh Bill. The committee has said that the Bill and the project are not acceptable in the present form.

So far, over 5.75 million UID cards have been issued countrywide. The cumulative revised budget estimates of the project, launched in 2009, is Rs.1,660 crore for 2010- 11 and 2011-12 put together. More than Rs.556 crore has already been spent on the scheme.

The project has also been opposed by the finance ministry, the home ministry and the Planning Commission, further strengthening the committee's reservations to the bigticket scheme.
Sources in the panel indicated that MPs like S. S Ahluwalia (BJP), Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI), Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJD) and Rashid Alvi (Congress) were most vocal in opposing the scheme. The draft report is of the view that the UID scheme has been conceptualised with no clarity or purpose.The standing committee's draft report on the legislation also reportedly noted that the project is riddled with serious lacunae in its content and execution.

It is, however, up to the government to accept or reject the report of the standing committee in full or in part.

The project had faced opposition on four main counts - inclusion of " residents" as opposed to "citizens"; issues related to privacy of those being assigned the UID numbers; duplication of the work being done for preparing the National 
Population Register ( NPR) using the same biometric attributes; and the massive expenditure that the project entails.

The committee felt that the ongoing implementation of the project is "directionless". 

Sources said the panel is of the view that there is confusion within the government and the implementing agency on the funding, technology, privacy aspects and implementation of the project.

The standing committee on finance "strongly disapproved" of the " hasty manner" in which the scheme is being implemented. The committee, sources said, feared that since private organisations and individuals are involved in the implementation process, the data collected for Aadhaar could end up in the hands of private players and misused.

The committee has questioned the technology used in Aadhaar. The draft report is learnt to have termed the technology as "unreliable and untested". It has also cited the experience of foreign countries with similar schemes and said that many European nations withdrew their UID projects after opposition from the public. Noting such discrepancies, the committee has recommended that the Bill is not acceptable.

The committee is learnt to have noted the opposition by finance ministry, home ministry and Planning Commission to the project.The finance ministry has reportedly expressed concern at the " lack of coordination" with the implementing agency and the government. The ministry is learnt to have told the panel that this lack of coordination is leading to duplication of efforts and adding to the expenditure of the project.

The home ministry is learnt to have criticised the efficacy of the interlocutor system in implementing Aadhaar. The ministry has reportedly pointed out that the project can create a security concern as "somebody interested" can identify a citizen using the project.

The plan panel also objected to the project. Incidentally, the UIDAI is at present working under the Planning Commission. Starting as a small office in Yojana Bhavan, the authority shifted its headquarters to a multistoried complex in Connaught Place while opening regional offices across the country.

The standing committee's report is likely to be adopted without any dissent notes."Key ministries are opposed to the project. Members, cutting across party lines, have raised concerns in the implementation," a member of the panel said.