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

Saturday, August 27, 2016

10304 - Wipro given undue favours in Aadhaar project, says CAG report - Hindu Businessline


  • VENKATESH GANESH

BENGALURU, AUGUST 2,
In a CAG report, Wipro has been accused of 'undue favours' in the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) project.
India's third largest software exporter, had bagged the UIDAI project in May 2011 for Rs. 134 crore which involved supplying, installing of servers computers, storage systems, security systems in the data centres of UIDAI in Bengaluru and Delhi/NCR region. These systems were to be fully operational, subject to an acceptance test based on UIDAI’s norms, the report stated.
These norms involved the usual warranty, time-related clauses and testing them before deployments, all a part of a technology project. As UIDAI did not have in house technical expertise in this testing, in March 2012, it hired Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) for conducting third party testing of all equipment and systems on behalf of UIDAI. Third party testing is a norm to ensure that the systems are properly tested but the vendor name was not disclosed. An email sent to Wipro went unanswered.
After testing, UIDAI found out that in certain cases uptime requirement relating to equipments like servers did not meet contractual specifications, the report said. In January 2013, UIDAI even reduced 'uptime' requirements, after which the tests found out that system performance was 'satisfactory' and accepted the equipment in February 2013.
However, on Wipro's requests, UIDAI decided to adopt February 2012 as the date of final commissioning of equipment, noted the report. As a consequence of this action, the warranty period of 12 months for items other than servers and storage system expired in 31 January 2013, a month before its acceptance.
When an audit was carried out UIDAI agreed in March 2013 with the vendor for Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) of these equipments was found to be Rs. 4.92 crore for the period from February 2013 to January 2014. This, the report finds is a deviation from the original contract, which, could have been avoidable.
When CAG asked UIDAI about this, the latter in its reply said that there were several questions around testing and quality after which testing was done again. CAG has argued that “since the equipment was in operation and Aadhar was getting generated, acceptance of equipments were a contractual requirement and hence covered under warranty.
In a statement Wipro had said:"The company maintains the highest standards of corporate governance and transparency. We respectfully disagree with the findings of the report that UIDAI extended undue favor to Wipro. We draw attention to the response provided by UIDAI in the CAG report that the acceptance of goods was given by the competent authority in UIDAI after the commissioning of the equipment. The annual maintenance contract was signed post the expiry of the warranty period.”
(This article was published on August 2, 2016)