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 20, 2017

11081 - Too many digital payment modes are a worry, raise expectations: R Gandhi - Money Control

Apr 19, 2017 02:51 PM IST | Source: Moneycontrol.com


According to R Gandhi, recently retired as the Reserve Bank of India’s Deputy Governor said, "Right now we are trying to do all things including Aadhaar Pay, UPI, BHIM and simultaneously trying to work on MDR (merchant discount rates) on card payments.

Beena Parmar
Moneycontrol News
Post demonetisation the Indian payment industry has gone through a dramatic change as innovative modes of digital payment methods have witnessed steady adoption among the masses.
According to R Gandhi, recently retired as the Reserve Bank of India’s Deputy Governor, "Right now we are trying to do all things including Aadhaar Pay, UPI, BHIM and simultaneously trying to work on MDR (merchant discount rates) on card payments."
"We are creating great expectations and that is my big worry. Second worry is we would not be able to assure security to the fullest," said Gandhi in a candid interview with Moneycontrol.
In its bid to move towards a cashless society and curb black money, the central government has launched a bouquet of digital payment options in the form of mobile apps and services such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), BharatQR, National Unified USSD Platform and unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) codes for feature phones.
These services were introduced alongside existing online banking services like internet banking, mobile banking, national electronic funds transfer (NEFT) and immediate payment service (IMPS).
The UPI has shown vulnerability with a small security breach at a few banks.
According to AP Hota, MD and CEO of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) — the country’s umbrella organisation for all retail payments and the designer of the UPI app -- fraudulent transactions on UPI amounted to Rs 25 crore since December 2016.
Gandhi thinks that the sequencing of the system should have been decided differently. "Today all of it was done parallelly (sic), my approach would be to not do all things at one go but one by one."
Gandhi says every technology-related product or service needs testing and re-testing which requires time and it should not be done in a rush.
"If authorities give a target to do it by this time then they (banks, NPCI will have to deliver and they will cut corners and things can get challenging. Assuring security is important…" Gandhi added.
At RBI, apart from handling the monetary policy and the demonetisation exercise after Urjit Patel took charge as the Governor, Gandhi (60) was also responsible for currency management, financial market operations, department of information technology and Payment and Settlement Systems.
Security and grievance redressal key to digital success
Having said that Gandhi believes that digital is the way to go and every system will have some aberrations but there is a six sigma theory to it and hence the RBI wanted to focus on the financial side and formed the Cyber cell department.
"Everything today is digitally managed including financial transactions, airlines, traffic system, electricity, etc. Hence governments across the world are worried that future wars or enemy attacks will be through the cyber space and sitting anywhere in the world, your enemy can attack you by injecting a virus in your traffic or power system and need not require a plane," he said.
With the remonetisation exercise leading to a decline in digital transactions, Gandhi pointed out that habit formation to use digital payments will take time and India must focus on speedy grievance redressal to hook people on to the digital channels.
"I won’t be disturbed if there are failures…One is to limit the failures and tighten security. The second most important thing is that the resolution of the failure must be faster," Gandhi said.
"People will get an assurance even if things go bad, it has been corrected (quickly). There we are lacking. In our country, our attention to speed in resolving grievances things is taking time," he added.