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

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

9929 - Tax department’s dilemma: How to ensure universal seeding of Aadhaar with PAN - Live Mint

 Wed, May 04 2016. 10 18 AM IST


Tax department wants to ensure that all PANs are seeded with Aadhaar to weed out duplicate PANs and check tax evasion

Remya Nair

New Delhi: The tax department is faced with a dilemma.
It wants to ensure that all permanent account numbers (PAN) are seeded with Aadhaar to weed out duplicate PANs and check tax evasion. However, it does not have any powers under the Income Tax Act to compulsorily seek the Aadhaar number from taxpayers.

Because of this, so far, only around one-third of PANs have been seeded with Aadhaar.

To counter this, it is exploring ways to further incentivize taxpayers to encourage them to voluntarily link their Aadhaar to PAN.

According to data available with the tax department, more than 24 crore PAN numbers have been issued by the tax department. Of this, around 11 lakh have been declared invalid due to various reasons, including multiple issuance to the same taxpayer.

With Aadhaar, issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), also crossing the one billion coverage mark, the tax department is hopeful that it will successfully cross-tab PAN and Aadhaar and successfully weed out more duplicate issuances.

The income tax department has been using technology to match personal details to ensure that duplicate PANs are not issued. However, some taxpayers managed to get more than one PAN by making some changes in their personal information at the time of submission of the PAN application. By linking PAN with Aadhaar—a 12-digit number unique to every individual as it captures biometric information like fingerprints and iris scan—the tax department is trying to ensure that one individual holds only one PAN.

PAN is a 10-digit alpha-numeric number allotted by the income tax department and is mandatory for conducting tax transactions and high-value financial transactions. This helps the tax department detect tax evasion and circulation of black money.

“The Income Tax Act empowers us to mandatorily ask for the PAN number. But it does not give us the powers to mandatorily ask taxpayers about their Aadhaar number,” said an income tax department official, who did not wish to be identified. “The law ministry has also pointed this out. So, we are looking at ways to further incentivize taxpayers to give their Aadhaar number voluntarily,” the official added.

At present, the tax department collects information on Aadhaar through various procedural incentives. For instance, there is an additional column in the PAN application form for taxpayers to give their Aadhaar number. However, this is not mandatory. Also, there is a similar column in the income tax return form, but here again, the taxpayer has the option to leave it blank.
As an incentive, the tax department had introduced a provision last year, wherein taxpayers could digitally verify the tax return form using Aadhaar-based authentication without having to post their signed tax return acknowledgement to the central processing centre in Bengaluru.

B.M. Singh, former chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, said using Aadhaar will help in checking the proliferation of duplicate PANs.

“The fruitful approach will be to incentivize taxpayers to disclose their Aadhaar. The tax department should look at more ways to encourage taxpayers to voluntarily disclose Aadhaar,” he said.