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, February 16, 2018

12820 - India accused of creating identity card ‘big brother’


Opponents say Aadhaar is world’s most powerful state surveillance tool

An index finger impression is used to withdraw money from a personal bank account with an Aadhaar card © AFP
Kiran Stacey in New Delhi 14 HOURS AGO

Nearly a decade ago, India launched what the World Bank called the “world’s most sophisticated digital identity scheme”, to give its 1.3bn citizens a unique biometric ID card in an effort to overhaul its complex and leaky welfare system.

Today, defying predictions that it could never complete such a project, almost every adult in the country has an “Aadhaar” card. But instead of using the scheme only to combat benefit fraud, New Delhi is now trying to use it to clamp down on tax evasion and even terrorism, triggering a legal challenge that has gone all the way to the highest court.

Lawyers for about 30 different plaintiffs have recently been arguing in the Supreme Court that Aadhaar violates a fundamental right to privacy. They have already prompted a reinterpretation of the Indian constitution, and within weeks they could spell the beginning of the end for the ambitious project.

Shyam Divan, one of the lawyers challenging the scheme, says: “What Aadhaar appears to do is shake the balance and put the government in such a dominant position that we are unlikely to remain a democratic, open society.”

When the scheme was launched in 2009, Aadhaar — meaning “foundation” in Hindi — was touted as an answer to several fundamental problems.

Primarily, it would help eliminate the number of people pretending to be someone else in order to claim their benefits. Government figures show 40 per cent of those who are supposed to receive food rations do not, while that figure is 65 per cent for wage guarantees — though not all of this is down to identity theft.

Second, the cards would give millions of Indians a verified, portable identity. This would allow them to open bank accounts, move easily from state to state and take out insurance.

This is big data mixed with big brother
Reetika Khera, economics professor, Indian Institute of Technology

Third, the cards would allow benefit claimants to shop around for their government-subsidised rations, helping cut fraud by shopkeepers.
“Around 10 to 20 per cent of people didn’t have IDs before, and many people had other not very good IDs, like ration cards, which don’t identify each family member,” says Nandan Nilekani, the billionaire founder of IT group Infosys and first chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, which administers the programme.

“This has been a huge, huge step forward.”

Since Mr Nilekani left the project, it has mushroomed in scale. Ministers have recently decreed that Aadhaar cards should be linked to everything from personal bank accounts to driving licences, mobile phones, and train ticket purchases.

New Delhi says the extension will help tackle tax evasion by creating a real-time database of citizens’ spending and saving habits. But its opponents say it is creating the world’s most powerful government surveillance tool.

“This is big data mixed with big brother,” says Reetika Khera, an economics professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

Last year, activists chalked up their first success when a nine-judge panel ruled that the constitution allowed for a fundamental right to privacy — a judgment that has implications for everything from abortion to gay rights.

Recommended
Now Mr Divan and his colleagues are in their final submissions to the court, arguing that Aadhaar violates the constitution, both in its concept and in the way the law was drafted and passed. They also say that much of what is being driven through now is not in the act.

They argue that the scheme allows the government to spy on citizens by monitoring their movements and spending patterns in real time — in Mr Divan’s words, “an electronic leash by which you tether a citizen from birth”.

They also say the data being collected are not secure — a view bolstered by a revelationby the Tribune newspaper that a reporter had been able to buy access to the database for Rs500 ($8).

They add that problems with data collection, faulty machinery and patchy internet mean it is harder to claim welfare, not easier, and that many valid claimants are being excluded as a result.

An Indian visitor (R) receives cash from a bank employee after withdrawing money from his bank account with his Aadhaar card during a Digi Dhan Mela, held to promote digital payment, in Hyderabad © AFP

Another challenge is the proposal that Aadhaar cards must be used to buy mobile phones and open bank accounts, which opponents say effectively prevents people from choosing not to join the Aadhaar system.

The government has yet to make its legal response, but it has previously said the fundamental right to privacy was “esoteric and elitist”, and contrary to the interests of the masses.
Narendra Modi, prime minister, said recently: “Today, because of Aadhaar . . .. middlemen have lost jobs, so have dishonest people.”

Mr Nilekani is similarly scornful of the anti-Aadhaar arguments. “The notion that before Aadhaar we were in some pastoral paradise is complete bunkum. Half the people were not getting their rations,” he says.

“This is a small group of activists trying to make a noise because they want to influence the Supreme Court.”
Within weeks, India will find out whether the Supreme Court has been listening.

Concerns raised over system
The date of birth on Rukam Pal’s Aadhaar identity card is wrong. 
This should be an easy problem to resolve, but when Mr Pal went to get a new card, he found that his fingerprints had been burnt so many times in the course of his job as an ironer that the system could no longer recognise him.

Barfi, his wife who goes by a single name, says the problem means he is unable to claim his government-issued social pension. Under the welfare scheme he would only be able to claim Rs300 a month, but this would be enough, says Barfi, to help pay for medical treatment for his breathing problems.
Activists say Mr Pal is one of millions of people who have been excluded from the Aadhaar system. They say two women in the state of Jharkhand have now died because they were unable to claim their benefits.

Those who designed the Aadhaar system say it was always meant to be supplemented by a manual back-up system for cases such as Mr Pal’s. 


But according to Barfi, shopkeepers are not offering any verification system other than Aadhaar. “There is no alternative,” she says.