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

Monday, July 5, 2010

240 - UID authority ropes in SBI as first registrar

UID authority ropes in SBI as first registrar
Kirtika Suneja / New Delhi July 05, 2010, 0:47 IST

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has roped in the country’s largest bank — the State Bank of India (SBI) — to be its registrar.

As a registrar, SBI will collect both demographic and biometric information of the bank’s 170 million account holders. It is the first bank to partner with the UID (renamed ‘Aadhaar’) authority that plans to issue unique numbers to each of India’s one billion-plus citizens beginning this August. The bank will help the authority in enrolling people in the UID system by converting the information it has into the UID format.
The UID has set standards to cover the method of collection of demographics — name, age, gender, address and the guardian’s name — and biometric attributes like the face, all 10 fingerprints and an iris scan. Since all the 13,000 branches of SBI can’t simultaneously enroll people, the bank plans to inform its account holders on the day they can get enrolled in the system.
“Other than SBI, we are also in consultation with 10 public sector banks which will capture data and give it to us,” confirmed a highly-placed official from the UIDAI. “The data with many banks is not in a clean position and this will give them the opportunity to do so. It for the SBI to decide whether the existing account holders will be converted to the UID format or linking the new customers with the UIDs,” he said.

The official added the UID authority has also roped in 21 state governments on the project, with the exception of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and the North Eastern states. “We will sign MoUs with all states by July 15 and get them on board. The first set of Aadhaars will be issued between August this year and February 2011.”

On June 8 this year, India’s largest life insurance firm, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), had signed an MoU with the UIDAI to become a registrar for the delivery of the unique 12-digit identity number to the people of India.

With this, the UIDAI will also have access to a database of 200 million policyholders of LIC. LIC has details like name, gender, sex, father and mother name of policyholders. It only has to add the biometric details to it. LIC will start the proof-of-concept with some of the training centres and will be ready by August.

UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani also has plans to involve other financial institutes for the project. For the past four to five months, his team has had talks with the Reserve Bank of India, Indian Banks’ Association, National Payments Corporation of India, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology and various banks on microATMs for financial inclusion, which is one of the biggest goal of Aadhar. MicroATMs will allow customers to perform basic financial transactions using only their UID number and their fingerprint as identity proof (along with a Bank Identification Number for inter-bank transactions).

The UIDAI is preparing for the first rollout of the UID or Aadhaar from August 2010. Banks and financial institutions could either look at their existing customer base or focus on acquiring new customers and share that database with the UIDAI which will provide a client enrolment software to the registrars and de-duplication services too.

The authority has been allocated Rs 1,900 crore for the financial year ending March 31, 2011, of which Rs 1,300 crore will be used for enabling the registrars to enroll people in the system and the remaining Rs 600 crore will go towards the setting up of the IT infrastructure
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