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

Thursday, April 14, 2016

9829 - How UPI works - Live Mint

Last Modified: Wed, Apr 13 2016. 10 54 AM IST


Unified Payment Interface is expected to a play a major role in achieving goals of universal electronic payments, a less-cash society, and financial inclusion

A Staff Writer

Graphic by Subrata Jana/Mint

The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) envisages a payments architecture that is directly linked to achieving the goals of universal electronic payments, a less-cash society, and financial inclusion, using the latest technology trends, laid down in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Payment System Vision Document (2012-15).
The RBI document reveals that the number of non-cash transactions per person currently stands at just six per year; only a fraction of the 10 million plus retailers in India accept card payments; banking services were available in less than 100,000 villages as of March 2011; and nearly 145 million households are excluded from banking.
Given this background, the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI), which was set up in April 2009 with the core objective of consolidating and integrating the multiple systems with varying service levels, into a nation-wide, uniform and standard business process for all retail payment systems, undertook the task of implementing a UPI to simplify and provide a single interface across all systems.
Considering the fact that about 150 million smartphone users exist in India today, and that the number is expected to rise to 500 million over the next five years, the solution leverages the growing presence of mobile phones as acquiring devices and uses virtual addresses instead of physical cards, thus reducing cost of both acquiring and issuing infrastructure.
Value of UPI
UPI is a cheap, secure, reliable, mobile-first, interoperable, open-source, instantaneous settlement and both pull and push platform, according to a note by Bengaluru-based technology product start-ups thinktank iSpirt.
Moreover, while pre-paid wallets can’t do more than Rs.10,000 worth of transactions without KYC (know your customer) norms in a given month, a UPI-enabled platform bank account can transfer up to Rs.1 lakh instantaneously.
Besides, the cost of each transaction is going to be less than Rs.0.45, and one can also factor in all the savings from, and to, bank accounts. (http://bit.ly/1SYOShJ).
Virtual address
Now, one can use virtual/disposable accounts to do transactions generated right from the bank app. Through this, the merchant or the payee will not know your details and even if his system is hacked, you needn’t worry about losing money.
Pull and Push amount can be requested from a certain account or paid into some other account.
Mobile first
It’s one of the few systems in the world designed for the new mobile age, helping with easy integration across various platforms.
Interoperable OTP (one-time password) generated on one bank app can be used across another for transaction authentication. Also, multiple level of identifiers can be used (bank account, Aadhaar number, virtual identifier, mobile number, etc) to send or receive money. Biometric integration gives a second factor authentication, securing your account like none other in market.
Recurring payments
Payment Support Providers (PSPs) can provide an add-on for easy-to-do recurring payments on top of UPI.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are going to be a game changer—they will ensure a level-playing field that will allow even a small start-up to do what big companies can.

What the UPI ecosystem involves
Level 0
People who build the UPI switch. A switch handles authentication and communication between the issuing and acquiring banks. ‘Generation Two’ switches were card machines on the merchants’ premises; authentication was handled by the machine and the bank customers’ private PIN was keyed into the merchant’s machine, and needed an expensive leased line to operate. ‘Generation Three’ switches are UPI ones—they enable customers to key in PIN/OTP (one-time password) on his/her smartphone, while authentication happens centrally. One big worry is how to get banks to agree to connect to the switch.
Level 1
Those who connect to the switch. In UPI’s case, they are called PSPs. (Old players were called Payment Gateways but these are now passe.) There will be many PSP builders—some inside banks, many outside as start-ups and merchants.
Technology worry: How to build a good PSP? What should I be focussing on?
Business worry: How to get a bank to “adopt” my PSP as the primary PSP?
Banks and customers are free to engage with multiple PSPs. The bank may have costs associated each time, while customers will only need to note down different addresses that will be associated with their identities on different PSPs.
Level 2
They connect to the UPI PSP, Visa/Master Card networks, RuPay or International payment gateways. They have to manage the user experience from the card to transaction completion.
Technology worry: How to reduce failure in the underlying system? How to handle refunds? How to handle COD (cash on delivery)?
Level 3
They are called on-boarders. They have to sign up new UPI, or new wallet, customers. On-boarding has high failure rates and lots of clever hacks go into making that less painful.
Technology worry: How to outwit others?
Business worry: How to find touchpoints before the consumer gets to the cart to make on-boarding happen?
Level 4
They are the application guys. They bring new cash-out (e.g. recharge players like PayTM), cash-in (e.g. Eko) and social payments (e.g. MyPoolin). In the future, this is where the action will be. They have to be a destination site or integrate into existing payment experiences.
Technology worry: How to integrate with others?
Business worry: Are they “allowed” (as they are initially in the grey area from RBI perspective)?
Enablers Innovative authentication collectors, E-sign, and digital consent are third-party systems that are needed by Level 1-4 people.
Source: iSpirt

Glossary
AEPS
An NPCI product, the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) offers instant, 24X7, interbank electronic fund transfer service through mobile phone. It allows Aadhaar biometric authentication-based transactions from a bank account that is linked with the Aadhaar number.
APBS
The Aadhaar Payments Bridge System (APBS) is a system allowing remittances to be made to an Aadhaar number without providing any other bank or account details. It uses the NPCI central mapper as a part of National Automated Clearing House (NACH) to enable government user departments to electronically transfer subsidies and direct benefit transfers to individuals on the basis of their Aadhaar number. Currently, the NPCI central mapper has about 160 million Aadhaar to bank mappings in its database. As part of large scale adoption of Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) across all subsidy systems, it is expected that mapping database will have about 200-250 million Aadhaar mappings within next 12-18 months.
PSPs
Payment Support Providers (PSPs), as defined by RBI, collectively cover all RBI-regulated entities under the Payments and Settlement Act of 2007. These include banks, payments banks, PPIs, and other regulated entities. In addition to the Aadhaar and the mobile number as global identifiers (mapped by NPCI), PSPs can offer any number of virtual addresses to customers so that they can use the virtual address for making and receiving payments.
IMPS
Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), launched on 22 November 2010, is now available to the Indian public from over 65 banks.
USSD
Unstructured Supplementary Services Data
NPCI
National Payment Corporation of India
UIDAI
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which issues digital identity (called Aadhaar number) to residents of India and offers online authentication service.