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, March 1, 2019

14061 - Aadhaar Articles dated 28th February 2019


Voter Deletions in Telangana Using Aadhaar Questioned
NewsClick
Swecha and Rethink Aadhaar have questioned Aadhaar based voter deletions in Telangana. In a press release, they have stated that voter deletions ...

Scroll Investigation: How your Voter ID was linked to Aadhaar without your knowledge or consent
Scroll.in
Election Commission used dubious means to collect Aadhaar data of 300 million voters in 2015 before the Supreme Court stopped the exercise.

How To Change Surname And Address on Aadhaar Card
CCM
If there is any spelling error or other incorrect information on your Aadhaar card, it will not be possible to link it with permanent account number (PAN), ...

Govt schemes like Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar saved Rs 1,10000 crore from going to 8 crore 'fake ...
Business Today
Citing his government's schemes like Jan Dhan Yojana and Aadhaar, Modi said these efforts have saved more than Rs 1,10,000 crore of public ...

Bid to save school kids: Why not insist on production of Aadhaar card at liquor joints, asks TN High ...
Times Now
Madurai: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has thrown a question to the Tamil Nadu government as to why Aadhaar cards not be made ...


Aadhaar card linking MANDATORY with THESE 3 services
Times Now
New Delhi: The linking of Aadhaar, the 12-digit biometric ID issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), with various services such as ...

Cuttack slum woman struggles for Aadhaar!
Daily Pioneer
If Mita were to breathe her last, what would be the plight of her three-year-old daughter? Aadhaar or the lack of it would dreaded and venomous card ...

With Aadhaar out-of-bounds, payments industry wants RBI to allow them use facial-recognition ...
Moneycontrol.com
The apex court verdict last year had made it impossible for the electronic payments industry to use theAadhaar data for customer onboarding, ...

How India's ambitious plan for digital government grew into a monster
The National
In the decade since India created a government agency to collect residents' data for Aadhaar, the world's largest biometric identification scheme, a lot ...

Step back Aadhaar, Haryana opts for family IDs from March 31
Times of India
CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government on Tuesday said its 'Parivar Pehchan Patra' scheme, on the lines of Aadhaar, will soon be launched in the ...

Plea: Remove caste, religion & Aadhaar info for school registration
Times of India
The petitioner sought a direction from the court for the removal of fields such as religion, social category (caste), community and Aadhaar number ...

ALERT! Still haven't linked PAN card with Aadhaar card? Income Tax dept lends helping hand as ...
Zee Business
As an alert to taxpayers, the Income Tax department has already announced that the last date to link PAN card with Aadhaar card is March 31. It must ...

Aadhaar duties assigned to government school teachers
Times of India
Pune: Teachers in government schools across the state have now been given the additional responsibility of enrolling students for Aadhaar and ...

Data protection risks with online e-wallet KYCs far less than the Aadhaardatabase
Financial Express
The use of CKYCR (Central KYC Registry) will solve the problems currently facing e-wallets, who are staring at the March 1 deadline for offline KYC ...


HC: Can Aadhaar card be made must to purchase booze?
Times of India
MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Tuesday asked the government whether it could mandate people to produce Aadhaar ...

Can Aadhaar be made must to buy Tasmac liquor, HC asks state
Times of India
Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has asked the government if it can mandate producingAadhaar cards to buy liquor from ...

These Indians can now use Aadhaar to visit Nepal
Milbank Monitor
NEW DELHI: Aadhaar cards are now valid travel documents for Indians under 15 and over 65 travelling to Nepal and Bhutan, according to a home ...

China could offer lesson for India's struggle with data security: analysts
Global Times
Last week, another security lapse in Aadhaar, India's vast biometric-based identity project, exposed as many as 6.7 million customers, according to ...

India's Biometric Database Is Creating A Perfect Surveillance State — And US Tech Companies ...
Osburn Oracle
For U.S. tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, the project, called Aadhaar (which means “proof” or “basis” in Hindi), could be a gold ...

Activists seek probe in voters' deleteion from list in Telangana
Telangana Today
Speaking to the media here on Monday, Swecha members said the methodology followed by ECI to identify duplicate voters using Aadhaar was ...

Jharkhand Adivasis protest failure to get ration for months, Aadhaar biometric snag
COUNTERVIEW
Cardholders said, they have to face hassles (“often leading to denial of ration”) due to mandatory use ofAadhaar and Aadhaar-based biometric ...

Then a pilot programme linking voter ID with Aadhaar was taken out in Nizamabad and Hyderabad districts.

Payments industry wants RBI to allow facial recognition for KYC
Express Computer (press release) (blog)
Facing difficulties after the Supreme Court ordered that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for financial/banking transactions, the payments industry ...