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, August 28, 2017

11906 - Aadhaar Vendor, Recently Linked With CIA, Says It Does Not Store or Capture Customers' Biometric Information - NDTV


Manish Singh, 27 August 2017

Photo Credit: Wikileaks Mobile Information Collection Unit / Flickr

HIGHLIGHTS
  • WikiLeaks published CIA's confidential documents this week
  • The documents revealed that CIA ran a program to collect biometric data
  • One company that could have been impacted has also worked with UIDAI
Cross Match Technologies, a US-based company that offers biometric products and services to a range of customers including India's Aadhaar authority (UIDAI), told Gadgets 360 that it has not captured, or stored, or processed any personal private information of its customers. The clarification comes days after WikiLeaks reported that US federal agency CIA had the capability to disguise Cross Match's software and then spy on Cross Match clients, theoretically giving it access to biometric data of over 1 billion Indians, if UIDAI were to be one of the organisations targeted. But Cross Match has clarified that its software does not have such capabilities.

John Hinmon, vice president of global marketing at Cross Match Technologies, told Gadgets 360 that the US-based company takes personal privacy very seriously. He added that Cross Match "does not capture, store or process in any manner personal private information, such as fingerprint images, collected by any of its customers," adding that the company doesn't have the "technical ability" to "covertly 'remote into' databases and systems that do store such personal data, nor have we ever been involved in developing or supporting such capability for any government or private entity."

"Crossmatch’s fingerprint scanners and software allow end users to capture, store and process those images in their own systems, under security protocols defined by that end user. Typically, these systems are accessible only by trusted 'administrative users.' To be clear, this is the case with India UID. All software utilised with our scanners was developed, tested and certified under the direction of India UID," Hinmon told Gadgets 360. "We value our partnership with India to support the historic and progressive Aadhaar program that widens social and economic inclusion and channels welfare payments more effectively."

Earlier this week, WikiLeaks published secret CIA documents detailing a biometric collection system that the US agency ran, for which it worked with its intel partners including the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The intel partners were "expected" to "voluntarily" share the biometric information they collected, WikiLeaks reported.

The CIA, however, didn't find the arrangement for the biometric collection system sufficient so it reportedly created a secret program called ExpressLane, using which it installed a trojan -- disguised as software update -- that would covertly collect the biometric information, according to WikiLeaks. Citing CIA's internal documents, WikiLeaks alleged that the agency was also using Cross Match's technologies for its biometric collection system, and ExpressLane program could compromise Cross Match's services.

In the aftermath of the WikiLeaks' revelation, reports claimed that the CIA could have managed to access and collect the biometric information -- Aadhaar data -- of Indians, since the UIDAI has also worked with Cross Match Technologies. It needs to be stressed that there is no evidence in WikiLeaks' report that explicitly states that the Aadhaar infrastructure is impacted, too. It is also not known whether Cross Match still provides its services to UIDAI. Update: Cross Match told Gadgets 360 that its software -- Crossmatch MOBS -- which has been referenced in the confidential CIA documents -- "has never been used in any UIDAI application."

More than 1.17 billion people have enrolled in the Aadhaar system — for which a person’s print of all fingers, iris data, and other private information such as name, data of birth, address, and phone number — are collected. Originally conceptualised to help a portion of Indians avail social welfare programs, the central government has made Aadhaar identity mandatory for availing several other services including filing income tax returns and getting a new phone number.

According to a press release issued by Cross Match in 2011, it had received a three-year certification to supply biometric authentication solutions to UIDAI. "Today's milestone demonstrates that Cross Match, as a global leader in image quality and performance, and its Indian partner for the UID program, Smart Identity Devices Pvt. Ltd. (Smart ID), are ideally suited to help make this historic project a reality," Cross Match CEO David Buckley had said then.

The issue, as reported by WikiLeaks, however is that the CIA's ExpressLane program could gather biometric information from systems without knowledge -- and presumably consent -- of its intel partners. In a brief conversation with Gadgets 360, Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of non-profit organisation WikiLeaks said CIA, through its ExpressLane program, installs "trojaned versions of the Cross Match under the cover of a "[software] update.”

A CIA-assigned officer would visit offices and install ExpressLane program — disguised as software update — which would set wheels in motion to covertly collect the biometric information, according to CIA's confidential documents published by WikiLeaks. Several documents detail how the authorised officer would install the program, and the technical details of how the program had been created.

Over the years WikiLeaks, founded in 2006, has published several confidential documents detailing various controversial programs run by governments. "Wikileaks has a solid history of producing legitimate material, but they've also been known to over-inflate the significance of it,” top security analyst Troy Hunt told Gadgets 360. "Especially in more recent times, there's growing concern that the material they're publishing is less in the best interests of the people, and more to further their own agendas. In reality, it's probably a bit of both.”

Update: In a follow-up conversation with Gadgets 360, Cross Match said, "The leaked documents specifically indicate that although malware was installed using a file name that was similar to the name of our software, the malware was designed to not affect, change or interact with our software. Rather, it was designed to act independently of our software." The company added that it had no knowledge about the creation or use of ExpressLane.

The story was updated at 01:40AM IST Monday to add further clarification from Cross Match.