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, November 17, 2017

12379 - Aadhaar needs a privacy law - Live Mint

We need to avail of Aadhaar’s benefits and manage the risks, while evaluating whether the benefits are worth the risks


Debate on Aadhaar and privacy has largely reached an impasse as those involved often use different definitions of data privacy. 

The Supreme Court’s (SC’s) landmark judgement upholding our right to privacy has intensified the debate on whether and how Aadhaar infringes on this right. With the upcoming five-judge Constitution bench hearing petitions on Aadhaar, these debates will soon be settled by the highest court.

Meanwhile, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has unequivocally asserted that Aadhaar meets the privacy test. But many others, both within the government’s fold and outside it, have said that Aadhaar can become an instrument to profile individuals, surveil them, and suppress dissent.

The boring but important truth is that both sides are right—to some degree. Aadhaar, if unregulated, can be a tool to abrogate our privacy. However, Aadhaar is only a tool. Other tools of the government—such as CCTV cameras, permanent account number (PAN) cards, Digital India, among others—are also capable of invading privacy. When dispassionately analysed, each of these tools, including Aadhaar, meet some, but not all, principles of adequate data privacy.

The solution, therefore, is not to annul Aadhaar on the grounds of data privacy. Like we do with any tool in the public domain, we need to avail of its benefits and manage the risks, while evaluating whether the benefits are worth the risks. To this end, we need two parallel initiatives to complement the court’s decisions.

One, rigorous, and independent research such as the Indian School of Business’ digital ID research initiative is vital to ascertain the benefits and risks across Aadhaar’s uses. This can help decide which uses should be furthered, adjusted, or even dropped. This is critical because Aadhaar’s uses are proliferating, but most of the available numbers on its impact are disputed and alternative narratives are based on journalistic accounts or small surveys. 

Two, we need an independent regulator to protect data privacy and regulate data initiatives (as argued in the data privacy Bill introduced by Baijayant Panda). This regulator must be backed by a robust law, and be competent to understand the nuances of data privacy and keep pace with new developments. This is urgent. We are many strides into a digital economy and are already suffering the consequences of this void.

Debate on Aadhaar and privacy has largely reached an impasse as those involved often use different definitions of data privacy. This can be avoided by the universal adoption of National Privacy Principles. Aadhaar is often analysed in a vacuum, without paying enough attention to national benchmarks (such as PAN, voter ID, passport, etc.). In this article, we examine data privacy issues with these factors in mind.

One potential harmful abuse of Aadhaar is using the unique number to link data sets that previously existed in silos. Depending on the breadth of data sets seeded with Aadhaar, they can be merged to uncover a person’s “food habits, language, health, hobbies, sexual preferences, friendships, ways of dress, and political affiliation”, as the SC worried in its judgement on right to privacy. Not only is this objectionable in and of itself, such profiling can be used to discriminate against individuals and stifle dissent.

Aadhaar is not the only unique identifier in our lives that can be used to link databases. Our mobile numbers, email addresses, PAN, voter ID, ATM card numbers and IP addresses can all serve this purpose (and indeed have).

Four features, however, make Aadhaar particularly potent for database linking. One, it covers almost all Indian adults. Two, the database has practically no duplicates (according to UIDAI), enabling a higher quality of linking. Three, it uses a 12-digit unique identifier, making linking easy. Four, over 120 government agencies require Aadhaar to provide services, paving the way for the first step of data linking—seeding each individual database with Aadhaar numbers. The irony is that the quality of the Aadhaar database (the first three reasons) leads to its widespread use (the fourth reason), making it susceptible to misuse.

Unauthorized database-linking violates almost all the National Privacy Principles, including “Purpose Limitation”, whereby “a data controller shall collect, process, disclose, make available, or otherwise use personal information only for the purposes as stated in the notice after taking consent of individuals.”

An operative phrase here is “data controller”. UIDAI’s chief executive officer, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, recently reaffirmed that Aadhaar meets the principle of Purpose Limitation. He is partially right: while Aadhaar can be used for database linking, UIDAI as a “data controller” does not engage in this practice (though it cannot prevent it either). However, other “data controllers” (say, criminal investigation agencies or credit card companies) with access to data-sets seeded with unique identifiers, such as Aadhaar, can link databases without due notice or consent and use it nefariously.
Therefore, attacking only Aadhaar for the larger privacy risk of database linking is not based on a practical understanding of how linking works. Aadhaar is only the means to an end. If Aadhaar ceased to exist, the threat of database linking using unique identifiers will endure, albeit with higher difficulty. This reinforces the need for a strong data privacy law and regulator to curb and manage database-linking practices.
Ronald Abraham is a partner at IDinsight and co-author of State of Aadhaar Report 2016-17
Research contributions from Shreya Dubey and Akash Pattanayak. This is the first of a two-part series on Aadhaar and privacy.
Comments are welcome at theirview@livemint.com
First Published: Wed, Nov 15 2017. 02 46 AM IST