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, April 8, 2016

9769 - A new Aadhaar for Indian diplomacy- Deccan Chronicle

Published
Apr 7, 2016, 1:57 am IST

UIDAI enrolment has touched the one billion mark.


A strategic reimagining of the potential of Aadhaar and UIDAI is necessary

Finally backed by an enabling legislation, the Aadhaar project, the flagship of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), has been further bolstered by news that enrolment has touched the one billion mark. The creation of a database of easily retrievable biometrics and other information of a citizen — or of any resident, really — is an enormous help to government and public agencies as well as private users that may want to build applications and programmes on the Aadhaar number.

Having enrolled so many Indians and while hopefully headed towards universal coverage of Aadhaar, where does UIDAI go from here? Of course, it can remain a public agency responsible for constantly enrolling younger citizens as they are born or after the age of five. And for existing users, as addresses change and as fingerprints lose intensity, UIDAI will have to come up with updates and solutions, including perhaps better fingerprint scanners, those more sensitive to people with relatively difficult-to-pick-up fingerprints. No doubt all this will keep UIDAI and its officials busy with routine work.

Yet, a strategic reimagining of the potential of Aadhaar and UIDAI is necessary. There is a larger market out there, well beyond the shores and borders of India, that it can tap into. 

First, Aadhaar-like services and numbers need to be made accessible to the Indian diaspora. This is particularly so for the working class economic migrants from India who labour hard in West Asia, in the Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and so on.

It would be an important tool to establish identities and to link these workers, many of whom earn appreciable incomes but have limited job tenures and long-term social security, to contributory pension and health schemes back home, for when they return. Such mechanisms formed part of the discussion when the Prime Minister travelled to the UAE in August 2015. Logically plans could be extended to Saudi Arabia, which saw an Indian prime ministerial visit in the past week. Subsequently similar facilities could cover Indian diaspora and expatriate communities in other geographies, on a need-based and voluntary basis, but incentivised by specific economic opportunities, conveniences and services.

UIDAI should also look at a broader market, outside of providing free enrolment for Indian citizens, wherever they may be. The UIDAI offers a relatively low-cost solution, backed by the credibility of India’s information technology systems.  Many developing countries may find this more affordable than a similar biometrics-based enrolment programme executed by a Western company. It gives India a comparative advantage, whether it wants to use it as part of the ministry of external affairs’ Development Partnership Administration overseas assistance remit, or as a straightforward commercial product available to governments and public agencies in other countries.

In this, UIDAI and India could learn from Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). Cards offered by NADRA have proved very effective for the ministry of interior as well as other agencies in Pakistan to verify identities, streamline security protocols, track incomes and open bank accounts, and have generally served a host of purposes. After the domestic success of NADRA, one of Pakistan’s most impressive post-9/11 initiatives, the Pakistani agency has gone about securing international clients, including in Bangladesh and in Sri Lanka. It is believed though that the national identity (ID) card contract in Sri Lanka, awarded to NADRA in 2013, is at some risk. The current government in Colombo has been rethinking the idea, but that is beside the point.

India’s rapid UIDAI/Aadhaar enrolment has evoked much interest, not just in developing countries but even in first-world nations that are struggling with similar national database issues. India’s ability to do it relatively cheaply has attracted attention. It makes sense to leverage this. In the Gulf Corporation Council member-countries, for instance, UIDAI could, separately, enrol Indian citizens working there as well as expatriate workers from other countries for their national governments or for the host government, as the case may be.

Alternatively, take countries such as Indonesia and the neighbouring Timor Leste, or indeed the 14 nations that are part of the Forum for India Pacific Cooperation — which the Modi government has reached out to and whose leaders participated in a summit meeting in Jaipur in 2015. In many of these countries, populations are spread out very thin, across remote territories and islands. An exhaustive tabulation of numbers, let alone a compilation of identities, is a logistical challenge. With its experience in the many regions and distant outposts of India, UIDAI could be better suited to delivering such services, at reasonable prices, than a Western competitor. Other than the Pacific Islands, the 54 countries of Africa, again hosted by India at a summit in New Delhi only a few months ago, could be alive to an Indian role or assistance that seeks to export UIDAI’s skill set.

For a start, India should offer UIDAI’s services to other South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries, though one expects geographically distant partners, rather than neighbouring ones, may be easier to persuade. The avenues are many. Which one will lead where remains to be seen. The fact is, however, that Aadhaar and UIDAI are a story of Indian excellence and delivery of a public service that has few global parallels in terms of size, scale and timelines. The government would be doing itself and India a disservice if it didn’t capitalise on this diplomatic opportunity.

The author is senior fellow, Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at malikashok@gmail.com