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

Sunday, January 14, 2018

12748 - Aadhaar Articles Dated 14rh January 2018



Economic Times
This has been made possible because of Aadhaar's design, its technology, legal framework, authentication infrastructure and its use as the verifiable identity across sectors. Aadhaar is also a game changer and enabler for the poor. Yet it often comes under criticism from various quarters, including the ...



Beef up Aadhaar security - The Asian Age



The Hindu
A notice issued by the Supreme Court on Friday gave the line-up of cases to be heard by the Constitution Bench, starting with the Aadhaar cases, then a petition by Kerala resident Joseph Shine challenging the commodification of women by the penal law of adultery in the Indian Penal Code, followed by ...





Live Law
The High Court had last week directed, “While examining the surety papers, the trial court shall necessarily obtain copy of the Aadhaar card of the accused as well as of the surety.” It had issued the directives in view of the rampant submission of forged revenue documents and sureties in Trial Courts.






The Indian Express
In the village last week in which I met a man who had an Aadhaar card but could not use it because manual labour had erased the lines on his fingertips, nobody was literate. There is no road to the village, electricity is erratic and clean water impossible. Village water is so awful that villagers regularly get ...






NewsClick
Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on Aadhaar's validity that is to begin from 17th January, citizens and independent activists protested against the draconian nature of Aadhaar that is being linked by the Government to welfare schemes like access to Ration and Pension. A single identity card ...






Times of India
HYDERABAD: Even as major concerns are being raised about Aadhaar data security, the existence of another huge database containing personal info of lakhs of Indian citizens, that has no legal framework, has sent alarm bells ringing among open data campaigners and data protection advocates.






The Quint
The Supreme Court of India will, on 17 January, begin hearing a batch of petitions challenging the validity of Aadhaar and the mandatory linkage of the biometric identity to several services and social welfare schemes. The Constitution bench will comprise Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, and Justices ...






Times of India
Seven-month pregnant Sharon Fernandes had to wait for six hours to get her Aadhaar enrolment done at the Wanowrie ward office. When she requested for the enrolment of her three-year-old son as well, she was told to come some other day › A man who visited a centre with six members of his family ...






COUNTERVIEW
Two of the world's top human rights organizations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (AI and HRW) , in a joint statement, have thrown their weight behind those opposing aadhaar, saying, the Government of India's "mandatory biometric identification project, aadhaar, could lead to millions ...






The Quint
It is the intention of the government to give fillip to Aadhaar movement and encourage the people of this country to enroll themselves under the Aadhaar scheme, the Chhattisgarh High Court has said. Now, it will be difficult for a person without Aadhaar card to obtain bail from the courts in Chhattisgarh as ...






The Hindu
Our problem is harassment with regard to linking our Aadhaar to public and private service providers. My fingerprints cannot be authenticated. At the time of registration in 2013, cross marks, 'X', were shown against all my ten fingers, indicating that they cannot be authenticated. In my wife's case, though ...






Hindustan Times
The police in Bengaluru have discovered at least two instances of criminals using SIM cards — obtained through the Aadhaar authentication of someone else — to avoid being tracked down by the officers hunting for them. In both cases, the police said, the dealers kept the Aadhaar details of those ...






Hindustan Times
The taint of five alleged starvation deaths in less than four months is hanging heavy over Jharkhand, which is struggling to knock its public distribution system (PDS) into shape and get beneficiaries to link their Aadhaar to it. Consider this: Only eight of the state's 24 districts have a district supply officer ...






Tech Observer
According to the researcher, the Aadhaar mobile app is saving user sensitive data including the biometric data in a password protected local database. The password for the database is generated using a random number “123456789 as seed” and a hardcoded string db_password_123 which remains ...






The Telegraph
He said that as Aadhaar numbers were virtually mand-atory to get welfare benefits such as PDS ration, Pradhan Mantri Awas, scholarships and pensions, it was mandatory for an Aadhaar enrolment team at these meetings. But, he conceded poor internet connectivity was a big problem in remote areas ...






The Asian Age (satire)
Although the government is putting up a brave face about the raging controversy over Aadhaar, it is seriously worried about the adverse fall-out of this public wrangle. Consequently, at least half-a-dozen senior ministers held a marathon session last week to discuss the questions raised by public and ...






Daily Pioneer
One of the great advantages of Aadhaar is that facilitates direct transfer of funds to beneficiaries and keeps a tab of actual beneficiaries of the PDS. It is undeniable that the use of Aadhaar has brought down the organised loot of Government funds exponentially. So why are NGOs so resolute in their ...






The Hindu
Early morning on December 29, the Muzaffarnagar police raided the neighbourhood where Wakeel and Nasimuddin lived and arrestednine persons, including three minors (as per their Aadhaar cards), three women and three men on charges of cow slaughter and attempt to murder. The police claimed ...






News18
According to a notification by the court registry, the list of eight cases begins with Aadhaar matter and the rest of the Constitution Bench cases have been listed in ... The Constitution Bench in Aadhaar case is headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and includes Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY ...