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

Friday, August 25, 2017

11862 - Centre should suo moto roll back its decision to mandate Aadhaar: Tathagata Satpathy - Economic Times




By MEERA MOHANTY, ET Bureau|
Updated: Aug 24, 2017, 09.21 PM IST

The immediate consequences would be that the government’s decision to mandate Aadhaar would have to be reviewed.

Biju Janata Dal MP Tathagata Satpathy has been one of the very few who has carried the fight against Aadhaar, and the larger issues of digitals rights and individual privacy, in the Parliament. In an interview to ET, the politician and editor of two dailies, says the Supreme Court’s verdict on Thursday on privacy is historic and vindicates the stand of many like him, who have carried on this campaign. Edited excerpts: 

How do you see the SC’s order and what are its implication on the roll out of mandatory Aadhaar? 
I believe the unanimous 9-0 judgement is an outstanding affirmation of the vibrancy of democratic India in this 21st century. This landmark judgement shall pave the way for a bright future. The immediate consequences would be that the government’s decision to mandate Aadhaar would have to be reviewed. There is another case being heard by the SC, but in the light of this judgment which has spelt out what privacy entails for the average Indian, I think the government should suo moto roll back on it decision. 

What are dangers you were particularly concerned about? 
In today’s world data has become an integral part of trade, commerce, business, governance. If you are aware the European Union, one of India’s major trade partners, has brought in the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) system and looks very stringently at how a country with which they do business deals with its internal data, both corporate and individual. Today, business and trade information holds the highest value in the world. Businesses go to great extent to ensure the protection of this information, smoking out boardrooms as a small example, and here we are offering everything to entities we don’t even know. Take the GSTN (Goods and Services Tax Network) for example. 

The Finance Minister told the Lok Sabha that data on 3.5 crore transactions are being collected from businesses, small and large, every single working day across the country. That figure is bound to grow. Which is again being manned by private parties, whether it’s the ICICI, HDFC, NSE. Now the public has no idea who their stakeholders are, which could include foreign entities, too. 

Why was this so important to you? 
This is not a personal issue but I strongly believe in the individual's privacy. It is also my duty as an elected representative of people to make sure my people aren’t hassled unnecessarily. Over the past two years, old people unable to get their iris scanned, people working in the fields whose fingerprints won’t register, have to run to the Aadhaar centre again and again to avail basic government support.

The government argues it is the larger interest of compliance? 
Why do they need so much biometric then? I call it 'biometricked'. They are tricking the populace that it will cut down on corruption and leakage of government dole, there is nothing to show that it has attained that target so far. Let them first count the notes that have been returned after demonetisation. 

How come you didn’t have more support for this campaign amongst your peers in Parliament? 
Happy to claim there has been a whole big group of young people who have morally and technically supported in this fight for privacy. What though has to be taken into account is the fact that privacy as a concept is somewhat alien to Indian society. Such is our socio-economic reality, where large families live in small spaces in close proximity to each other, thus the average Indian is not allowed much privacy. May be because of this non existent concept, no Indian language such as Oriya or Hindi, has an accurate descriptive translation for 'privacy'. The closest we come to is 'gopaniyata' which is secrecy. 

Is there still room for the government to defend mandating Aadhaar, with reasonable restrictions? 
Some of my colleagues, I don’t want to name any one, justify infringement of individual privacy on the ground that it was required for national security. We know the Indian bureaucratic system and the police only too well, and know that our intelligence fails us when it comes to national security, but is a success on snooping on citizens of the country. Should we allow the country to be at the mercy of an industrialist-bureaucrat- politician nexus? 

You have also recently joined the fight against imposition of Hindi. 
Language also stands for dignity. Governments and people across the globe are doing everything to save their languages and here we are, in India, trying to impose one north Indian language thereby ensuring that all other languages die a very painful natural death. 

How many languages do you speak? 

Oriya, English, Hindi, French, Bengali, a few words of Tamil and Spanish. I have no problems when someone speaks to me in Hindi. I have been conversing with auto-rikshaw drivers and jamadars in Delhi for years but I cannot read or write Hindi.