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, November 15, 2010

837 - Fat profit institutions continue to board UID bandwagon - Money Life Article

November 12, 2010 06:05 PM | 
Moneylife Digital Team
Many large corporations are looking at Aadhaar as a pool of prospective customers and are joining hands with UIDAI. Visa is the latest entrant on board the UID bandwagon

The business of providing an identification number to around 60 crore is becoming lucrative day-by-day. Visa, an electronic payments technology company, has said it has developed a unique payment solution, using the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) platform.

The solution is designed to provide a payment infrastructure for unique identification (UID) or Aadhaar holders, especially the un-banked and under-banked.

In a release, Visa said it would provide its infrastructure to process payment transactions using biometric authentication from Aadhaar. As part of the proposed solution, once an individual enrols into Aadhaar, the partner bank can issue a Visa payment card, linked to his/her Aadhaar biometric authentication.

Visa is enhancing its systems to handle biometric data along with payment data and integrate with Aadhaar for authentication purposes. Visa is working with Total System Services Inc (TSYS), a leading global technology company, as the biometric authentication technology partner, for the UIDAI project, it added.

It's nothing illegal for an institution like Visa to join the UID bandwagon. However, the question is why a for-profit organisation would want to join the controversial project and spend its own money to establish this new infrastructure? There are three aspects.

One, UIDAI has a huge budget and the authority is likely to spend more than Rs45,000 crore over five years. For FY11, its budget allocation is Rs1,900 crore and a major part of this amount would be used for reimbursement of enrolment costs to the registrars as well as residents.

Second, UIDAI cannot handle a project to tag 60 crore residents on its own. And third, if anybody wants to carry out targeted marketing aimed at a population of 60 crore at one go, then UID certainly would prove to be a bonanza. (See: http://www.moneylife.in/article/78/7819.html).

In the release, Visa said, "Keeping in mind the large un-banked and under-banked communities in many parts of the country, Visa along with its banking partners will soon launch a financial inclusion pilot, using the UIDAI platform, after identifying suitable locations."

Already, the UIDAI has opened a can of worms by agreeing to allow access to registrars, like state governments and banks, as well as insurers who will collect individual data for the authority through their know-your-customer (KYC) database. This means that any company may be able to access the huge database (of about 60 crore people expected by the end of 2015) simply by becoming a 'registrar' or 'partner' and using the data for their own marketing initiatives. (See: http://www.moneylife.in/article/78/9594.html).

The UIDAI had selected three consortia - Accenture, Mahindra Satyam-Morpho and L1 Identity Solutions - to implement the core biometric identification system for the Aadhaar programme. UIDAI has stated that the three agencies would design, supply, install, commission, maintain and support the multimodal automatic biometric identification subsystem. The three vendors would also be involved in development of the multimodal software development kit (SDK) for client enrolment stations, the verification server, manual adjudication and monitoring functions of the UID application.