AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 13682 - Aadhaar and driving license linkage soon? What we know so far

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

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

13682 - Aadhaar and driving license linkage soon? What we know so far

Aadhaar and driving license linkage soon? What we know so far

The proposed Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill provides for linking of driving license and vehicle registration with the Aadhaar-based platform and proposes heavy penalties for traffic violations.

By: Namit Singh Sengar | New Delhi | Updated: June 12, 2018 8:36 PM

Linking Aadhaar with the driving license is seemingly moving ahead.

The idea of linking Aadhaar with the driving license is seemingly moving ahead and now the Modi government is moving in a focussed direction as Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that he is in talks with Nitin Gadkari to move ahead with this idea. Prasad holds the charge of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while Gadkari is Road Transport and Highways Minister in the Modi-cabinet. This comes after the issue of fake license being raised by several states and the difficulties of tracking driving offenders.

Moreover, the minister spoke in the context of drunk drivers, who commit accidents and flew to other states and linking Aadhaar with the license will help to nab the driver as fingerprints cannot be changed even if a person changes the name. “I am in conversation with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari to link Aadhaar card with license so that if a drunk driver escapes from one state to another by killing people, he would be caught. A person can change name not his/her fingerprints,” ANI quoted Prasad as saying on Tuesday.

The latest statement comes after Ravi Shankar Prasad in February had said that talks with Nitin Gadkari were going on to expedite the process of linking motor vehicle driving licenses with Aadhaar. “I am taking with Nitin Gadkari ji to finalise the linking up all the motor vehicle driving licences with Aadhaar,” Prasad said while addressing the NSE Tech Conclave 2018.

Also in February, Supreme Court-appointed committee on road safety headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice K S Radhakrishnan informed the court that centre is in the process of linking driving licenses with the Aadhaar and a software covering all states on a real-time basis is under preparation. The committee also informed the court that it had asked states and union territories (UTs) to forward road accident data for entire 2017.

The issue was even discussed in the Parliament in March, when MoS Road Transport and Highways, Mansukh Mandaviya, in a written reply to Rajya Sabha mentioned a report by National Informatics Centre on National Register for Driving Licenses, regarding fake licenses, which found the possibility of duplicate licenses, “as on January 5, 2015, out of total 6,70,16,851 driving licenses records available, 16,72,138 records were found to be possible duplicates spread over 7,99,923 clusters, ” Mandaviya informed the Parliament.

Earlier, the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister, Nitin Gadkari, had said that 30 per cent of the driving licenses in the country are fake and bogus and the government was planning to digitise the procedure to obtain the license for driving and also Aadhaar linking to avoid duplication.

The proposed Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill provides for linking of driving license and vehicle registration with the Aadhaar-based platform and proposes heavy penalties for traffic violations.

Meanwhile, the government is moving ahead with Aadhaar linkage to various services and schemes with the legal backing of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016.