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

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

13948 - SC Judgement on Aadhaar: Here’s why it is a blow to microfinance industry - Financial Express

Published: November 5, 2018 2:08 AM

The only data from Aadhaar received additionally was the borrower’s name, address and age all of which anyway, as a lender, they would capture.

By Sandeep Parekh

Aadhaar ruling a blow to microfinance industry

The financial industry is waiting for RBI, UIDAI and National Payments Corporation of India to come out with clarifications on what processes need to be modified based on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Aadhaar. They are likely to continue to wait. None of these entities will likely come out with a clear way forward in the short run. The review will probably need to be done at the highest levels of the government which will need to review all the issues of privacy, data protection and legitimate concerns flagged by the Supreme Court. There will need to be a comprehensive relook at the legislative and delegated laws.

This piece looks at the state of play of the financial markets and more specifically the microfinance industry after the ruling. In short, the Supreme Court ruling will have a hugely adverse impact on the entire financial industry, which, after decades of paper pushing, had managed to streamline its KYC process. As the first author realised on joining IIM-A as a full time faculty member in 2008, employment proof and a dozen ID proofs were not good enough to open a simple savings account in Ahmedabad. Just a kilometre from the campus, one Roopalben Panchal had previously created over 25,000 bogus bank and demat accounts.

Imagine the plight of tens of millions of migrant workers, who do not work near where they were born. They did not win the ovarian lottery of being born where work is plentiful, and were, as a consequence, excluded from the formal financial world. Till a decade back, half of Indian households did not have a simple banking account. This was an embarrassingly poor show by India after nearly two decades of super growth.

For all its warts, Aadhaar changed this scenario. People could easily open a bank account with an Aadhaar card or participate in the hitherto unknown utopia of borrowing a thousand rupees for an agricultural equipment, repayable to the microfinance entity over a year’s time or access capital in ways they could only dream of previously. Today, the microfinance industry reaches an estimated 35 million households. These are some of the most disadvantaged people of the country, who would like to dig themselves out of the hole of poverty with a lot of hard work and the little capital being made available to them.

VayaFinserv, of which the second author is the CEO, is one of the most digitally enabled microfinance entities in India. Today, or more accurately, till last month, they could, after meeting her for the first time, take her Aadhaar card, authenticate her online by a biometric validation and credit the borrower’s bank account with a priceless `10,000 she needed for loading her small tea shop with tea and biscuits. All of this in a matter of minutes, not days, weeks or months. The only data from Aadhaar received additionally was the borrower’s name, address and age all of which anyway, as a lender, they would capture as part of the loan application.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the private sector cannot use the seamless Aadhaar authentication of an individual the way they have till now. Authentication records in any case cannot be stored for more than 6 months. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Aadhaar card can be linked to one’s Income tax (PAN) card. It also allows the use of Aadhaar for providing direct subsidies to the poor, including gas subsidies, rations, MNREGA wages, etc. However, mandatory linking of Aadhaar with banks is no longer kosher. The Court has briefly stated that, “If such a person voluntary wants to offer Aadhaar card as a proof of his/her identity, there may not be a problem”. Further, while discussing the misuse of Aadhaar by corporate and/or individual, the Court held that Aadhaar can only be used as a proof of identity when the purpose of using it is provided by law.

The ‘little person’ now has to prove his identity at a significant time and cost to both the parties involved. The alternatives of providing a passport, driving licence, PAN card, which any middle or higher income customer can easily provide, is not easily available with the working rural populace, especially women, whom microfinance caters to. Sometimes, getting a simple photocopy of an ID proof involves a half-day trip to the nearby suburban centre. These photocopy proofs are not always fully reliable and are subject to misuse. In addition, the regulator has provided a maximum exposure available to a household, so that problems of over-indebtedness are not faced. After much efforts in last few years, reliable credit bureau information with Aadhaar linkage was developed by lenders and CICs for small ticket microfinance loans.

In the absence of Aadhaar, the system can be gamed with a person providing multiple IDs, each authentic, with a variation of names. This could, again, lead to unintentional over-lending to vulnerable customers possibly causing repayment stress and increased frauds due to the unsecured nature of these loans. Most microfinance organisations in order to reduce risk would likely stick to their existing customer base rather than go deeper and find new credit customers who may be needing it the most.The government and the regulators should come out with clear laws and procedures on how non-governmental entities can use the Aadhaar architecture to ensure bottom-of-pyramid customers are able to find a simple and fool-proof way of identifying themselves. Issues of privacy, data protection and state surveillance can be addressed. After all, there is no reason that people receiving subsidies should be enabled for financial inclusion, but the same class, who would like to work hard, should be excluded from the benefits which come out of financial inclusion.

On a lighter note, if the Supreme Court wanted to be a luddite in technological matters, it could have hand written the 1,500 page ruling on Aadhaar, which would have shrunk its size by 90%. We mortals would have been thankful.


The author is Partner at Finsec Law Advisors. Piece co-authored by Jagadish Ramadugu, MD & CEO of VayaFinservPvt. Ltd.