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

Monday, April 3, 2017

10941 - MS Dhoni’s Aadhaar leak raises questions on data safety and privacy - Indian Express

Perhaps the focus should be on ensuring complete safety to Aadhaar data, at the collection points as well as storage repositories, instead of showing urgency to impose it on citizens.

Written by Kanishka Singh | New Delhi | Updated: March 29, 2017 4:23 pm


Photo of Ms Dhoni posted on Twitter by CSCeGov handle

Former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Aadhaar details were made public by a Twitter handle of the Central Services Centre. The leak has raised the issue of privacy of individuals and security of data collected by the government for Aadhaar. The government has been on an overdrive to implement Aadhaar and link it to both welfare and non-welfare schemes in the country. But, it is a serious concern when personal information of an individual is not kept secure and leaked out in the public domain. Despite implementing advanced technological safeguards, a thing as simple as human error breached the security of Aadhaar. Perhaps the focus should be on ensuring complete safety to Aadhaar data, at the collection points as well as storage repositories, instead of showing urgency to impose it on citizens.

Furthermore, there are security loopholes which are continuously being flagged but instead of paying heed to them and resolving the issues, the government seems to be in denial. In recent reports, it was seen how people were able to gain more than one Aadhaar enrollment IDs. Social media is littered with posts, some claiming to be evidence, of more extensive security vulnerabilities or compromise of Aadhaar.

A report by the Data Security Council of India submitted to the UIDAI a few years ago had listed several security threats to the system highlighting the concerns of maintaining centralised databases of biometric personal identifiable information. “Large centralized databases of biometric personal Identifiable Information, hooked up to networks and made searchable in a distributed manner, represent significant targets for hackers and other malicious entities to exploit. Further, large centralised databases are more prone to functional creep (secondary uses) and insider abuse. There are also significant risks associated with transmitting biometric data over networks where they may be intercepted, copied, and actually tampered with, often without any detection,” the report had said

Discomforting clauses in the Aadhaar Act allow great space for UIDAI and government to wriggle out of accountability issues. According to Aadhaar Act, UIDAI is not legally obliged to inform someone whose information stored with them is compromised. Furthermore, only the UIDAI can file a complaint in such a case. Therefore, not only is the onboarding done in a rushed manner with so many security and privacy issues, it comes with such clauses that effectively keep individuals in the dark about misuse of their personal information.

The UIDAI claims that all its systems are secure and that the data accumulated is secure. But security experts remain wary about the program. Incidents of unauthorised attempts to use Aadhaar databases, unauthorised storage of Aadhaar information by Aadhaar Authentication User Agencies (AUAs) have come to the fore in recent days. Human error, insider attack, man-in-the-middle-attacks are just some of the vulnerabilities experts list which show that the system may actually not be 100% effective.

Acknowledging that the central infrastructure would be state-of-the-art, the Data Security Council report elucidated: “It is the other registrars and the agencies which will capture the data, and store the same even as they transmit the same to CIDR, that may turn out to be the weakest link when it comes to the security and privacy. The latter are likely to be susceptible to attacks from all angles – people, process and technology.”
It has been a controversial issue and the Supreme Court is yet to deliberate on the validity of Aadhaar. Chief Justice of India and a Constitution Bench will also outline the details of right to privacy and chalk out the nuances of the debate. However, incidents like Dhoni’s Aadhaar number leak raise questions on safety and privacy of the data.

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