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

Thursday, April 19, 2018

13307 - Data generated in India should not leave the country: Paytm COO Kiran Vasireddy - Money Control


Apr 17, 2018 02:24 PM IST | Source: Moneycontrol.com


The real issue being discussed is that people are not knowing what their data is being used for by those social media companies, feels Vasireddy.
Priyanka Sahay


Facebook's instant messaging arm WhatsApp recently forayed into the payments space in India. However, it didn't go down very well with many including Paytm that cried foul by alleging that Facebook was flouting the rules of a level playing field.

Facebook is now embroiled in a data leak controversy that affected roughly 87 million users of the company. The whole issue has raised questions about the social networking firm's business model.

In a conversation with Moneycontrol, Kiran Vasireddy, COO of Paytm stresses upon the need for stringent user data protection laws hinting at the issues with Facebook's business model. Edited Excerpts:

What are your thoughts on the issue of data privacy?

As a nation, it is important that we come out with strict data privacy laws. Today, some of the social networking apps (won't name them) have access to data which is shared with third parties and that's their core business model. Some of them are also getting access to banking and financial services data which could be a lethal combination.




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What needs to be taken care of is that data that gets generated here, stays here. It should not leave the boundaries of the country. The second thing is about the ownership of the data. We are very clear that as far as ownership is concerned, it is the people who should own their data, not the corporate or the government. At the end of the day, it is their data and they should own that data.
How can that be made possible?

It can be done by bringing the data privacy laws. The real problem is not about all these companies having access to the data but the intent and the use of data. Now, some of those companies have a business model of selling those data to third party companies. That is where it becomes tricky. As long as you have data privacy laws which would take care of how, where and when the data would be used, I am sure that a lot of things will fall into place.
The data which gets generated here should be regulated in some forms or the other. There can't be companies who do have access to financial services or banking data without getting regulated at all. These are some of the issues that need to be taken care of and we are quite hopeful that the government will come out with stringent data privacy laws.

Where should be the demarcation? A third party app like Uber is allowed to read my Paytm balance. So while Paytm is sharing users’ data with Uber many other apps are doing so with different third-party apps.
First of all, the demarcation comes about by people knowing that their data is being shared. The second aspect is about what data (is being shared). At the end of the day, it is not the whole data unlike what the social networking apps do.
That is their core business model, about collecting their data and then leveraging it, sharing with third parties for their own gain.
Hence, the demarcation comes in when people know when and what kind of data you want to share. You would know that your typical wallet balance is getting shared for a use case not anything beyond that.
The real issue being discussed is that people are not knowing what their data is being used for by those social media companies. They collect all your data and share it with any third party which you do not know who they are.
For how long should an app store the data of a customer, after he or she has deleted the app? In the case of Paytm, what is the norm?
The ethical obligation is to not have the data as long as there is a regulation which ensures that you have to have that data for a certain period of time. For companies like us or others, we all fall under some kind regulation.
Are there any guidelines around this for payment banks?

If you have a wallet and if you have some balance, even if you delete the app, the balance remains. We send daily reports to RBI of what the balance is for each and every individual in his account. So deleting the app doesn't mean that the balance is vanishing out. So as long as people fall under some form of regulation, things are taken care of.

Even though the RBI has made it clear that the minimum KYC can be done by using any official ID, many apps are trying to force customers to submit their Aadhaar to do the same. Would Paytm object to something like that happening?
We do not restrict our customers to share only Aadhaar for doing KYC. As per the regulation you have other forms of documents for doing your KYC and we allow each and everything that can be used to do KYC. We as Paytm accept every document.

Facebook is known to be sharing its data with third parties. In the case of Paytm to which all parties are how are you entitled to share your data? And how do you plan to or are already communicating that to your customers?

Firstly, I would like to confirm that we as Paytm don't share any data with any third party. We are not in the business model of selling our data. We are solving problems related to payments. We are solving things which can bring millions of people access to financial service.
How do you manage data storage abroad?  For every country that you will expand to, will there be a domestic data storage facility?

Yes, the data belongs to the people of that country. We have operations in Canada and so the Canada data will reside in Canada.
Is doing so a big financial liability?
Obviously, only serious players would like to do that.