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

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

11465 - ‘In a battle between staying anonymous and being unmasked, there is no excuse for being unprepared’ - Factor Daily



Kiran Jonnalagadda May 23, 2017 5 min


Editor’s note: Anonymity on the internet has its pros and cons. It helps whistleblowers, but also gives rise to online abuse. Last week, Bangalore-based internet activist and entrepreneur Kiran Jonnalagadda showed that set of sock puppet accounts anonymously operated by members of India’s software products think tank iSpirt were running campaigns to support Aadhaar, India’s biometric identity system. Some of those accounts were also trolling anti-Aadhaar voices on Twitter

Here’s a take from Kiran on why anonymity is still important to protect.

Anonymity is both good and necessary. It is a recurring feature in any closed system. Take elections for example. Your vote is anonymous, and this is an essential feature, but you only have voting privileges if you meet specific criteria such as being a citizen and over 18 — meaning it is a closed system. Anonymity does not allow anyone outside the system to participate.
Anonymity is both good and necessary. It is a recurring feature in any closed system… Anonymity does not allow anyone outside the system to participate  

Throughout most of history, closed systems have been easy to maintain because distance and language make natural barriers. The early internet, by simple virtue of being a relatively small place and limited to those geeky and privileged enough to get online, functioned like a closed system.

Early chat forums, from Usenet to IRC to email lists, also use the metaphor of a “room” wherein you had to enter a room to see the conversations within. A statement made inside a room was therefore unlikely to be seen by anyone not in the room.

Also read:

The social network metaphor, starting from the early 2000s, did away with the concept of rooms and instead defined networks around individuals based on their follows and followers, letting each user exist in a virtual room that shared significant overlap with the next person’s virtual room. Once these networks introduced sharing — Twitter’s retweet, Facebook’s share and so on — they added the ability for your words to be carried to an audience far beyond what you thought it was going to, with all the attendant upsides (influence) and downsides (loss of context and unwanted attention).

We can see one example of careful thought being put into anonymity on a social network on Quora, the Q&A site. When Quora launched, it included anonymous Q&A as a standard feature. However, since this could easily be abused for harassment, Quora added two other restrictions:
1. You had to have a Quora account to post anonymously, ensuring that you were part of the closed system, not an outsider.
2. Quora membership was available by invite only, preventing people from making new accounts just to use anonymously.

Both of these constraints worked to create a community that maintained civil discourse even while embracing anonymity. In Quora’s vision, a question or answer can continue to remain relevant even if you don’t know who is asking or answering.
Online social networks continue to be subject to the rule of law, but social networks, as with all software-defined matchmaker platforms, also find it necessary to define their own governance system, separate from the law  

While anonymous speech has a long tradition in society (consider, for instance, writing and publishing under pen names), society has also evolved mechanisms for dealing with unwanted speech such as libel, blasphemy and harassment, allowing the government to demand your identity from your associates (such as your publisher) under specific conditions and with due process (such as a court warrant).

Online social networks continue to be subject to the rule of law, but social networks, as with all software-defined matchmaker platforms, also find it necessary to define their own governance system, separate from the law. These are usually defined as the community code of conduct and can include rules such as Facebook’s ban on nudity, or the underlying process behind the “Report this” button on any of these sites. (See Matchmakers for a detailed examination of why these governance rules become necessary.)

What we’ve seen in the case of Twitter in particular is governance rules that overemphasise free and anonymous speech and under-emphasise limits on such speech, which is why Twitter is particularly prone to anonymous harassment  
What we’ve seen in the case of Twitter in particular is governance rules that overemphasise free and anonymous speech and under-emphasise limits on such speech, which is why Twitter is particularly prone to anonymous harassment. In my opinion, this is something for Twitter to reflect on and make amendments for, and this appears to be a widely held opinion.
Finally, if you’re doing anything that is likely to draw unwelcome attention, it is imperative for you to know how to protect yourself. The world of technology is a constant arms race, and in a battle between staying anonymous and being unmasked, there is no excuse for being unprepared. The recent episode has been a reminder for me on how badly educated people are. While I have no sympathy for those trying to abuse me (apart from their lack of education), I’m also concerned for others doing good work anonymously who may suddenly have a new tool (password reset) used against them. I hope they will stay alert and stay ahead of the curve.

Lead visual: Nikhil Raj