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, April 22, 2017

11095 - Mandatory Aadhaar : Arm-twisting Republic - Hard News


Posted on : April 21, 2017

The government's push to make Aadhar mandatory should frighten everyone. It is an Orwellian nightmare coming true

Nikhil Thiyyar Delhi
The Union Government seems to suffer from a basic lack of understanding of what the word optional means. At least that's what the Apex Court implied while hearing a public interest litigation that challenges the government’s move to amend the Income Tax Act through the Finance Act, 2017. The Supreme Court was categorical in its reprimand of the government's machinations when it said,"“How can you make Aadhaar card mandatory when we have passed an order to make it optional?" What must be noted here is that the Supreme Court's consternation has repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. Not only has the government flouted the SC's instructions, it has defiantly gone in the opposite direction. 

In the light of the government's push to make the UIDAI system mandatory perhaps the more pertinent questions to ask regarding the Aadhar Bill are: does it provide enough privacy safeguards and does it ensure access to public services? The answer to the first question is an outright no. In defending the Aadhar Bill, the Attorney General (supposedly a public representative) has argued that we the citizens of India essentially have no right to privacy. This is adding insult to injury. The bill was passed with no public consultation of what privacy safeguards to implement and has no built in safeguard for public or independent oversight. The Aadhar database is a disaster waiting to happen. A single breach could mean that sensitive data of millions of our citizens could be compromised in one stroke. In what can only be an eerie sign of things to come, FIRs were filed against eight websites for illegally collecting Aadhar data. As if this was not enough, the Aadhar bill gives law enforcement officials access to the database in matters of national security. In the guise of strengthening our public distribution systems, the government is pushing us towards becoming a surveillance state. It will be child's play for any intelligence agency to track anyone they want to for any whimsical reason. The Report on surveillance in India by the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) found that on average, the Central government alone taps more than 1 lakh phone calls a year, with around 7500-9000 phone interception orders being issued by it monthly. Combining this with requests from the state governments, the report concluded that, Indian citizens are routinely and discreetly subjected to government surveillance on a truly staggering scale. With Aadhar becoming mandatory this situation is set to degrade into a bottomless abyss where privacy becomes an urban legend. 

The exclusionary aspect of Aadhar has been commented upon multiple times. Nevertheless, it is a fact that needs to be reiterated once more: the Aadhar card is actually a tool to deprive our poorest and most vulnerable citizens of access to public services. There was the tragicomic example of a village in Jharkhand where in order to achieve 100 percent seeding of Aadhar for MNREGA beneficiaries, the village panchayat simply struck off all the names from the rolls. If there were no beneficiaries, no card required either. Aadhaar authentication requires not only internet connectivity but also biometrics and mobiles to work at the same time. In many villages of our country, not a single one of these technologies can be relied upon. Almost a year after Rajasthan introduced it, only 45 percent ration card holders used Aadhaar at ration shops. Biometric machines failed to authenticate about 10 to 15 percent of the drought-hit state’s one crore ration beneficiaries. 10 to 15 lakh people went without essential food grains because the much-hyped system went kaput. 

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, as the name suggests, aims at targeted delivery of subsidies. The government has issued close to 22 notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for the receipt of a range of services, ranging from the Mid-Day Meal scheme to maternity benefits. The Aadhaar number is likely to become a pre-requisite for filing income tax returns and applying for a PAN card. Any marginalised member of our society who doesn't have an Aadhar number can say goodbye to a host of public services that are critical to his/ her survival. Like a Kafka-esque novel where a lunatic bureaucracy keeps devouring itself, the Aadhar card is a classic case of good intentions gone horribly wrong. Making it mandatory would only make matters worse.