Students at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore raised questions on the huge cost of the newly-launched unique identification project, the security of the system and what was being done to prevent its possible misuse, but they got no clear answer
In the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) that I graduated from way back in 1983, dialogue and debate were the essence of true talent. Those who were revered most by the janta (as we used to call the crowd) were not just the toppers and gold medalists of the class-of course they had their special place too-but those who excelled in debating. In all the talks and public functions that we attended at IIT, the speaker would be booed if he shied away from the debate or the questions-and-answers session. It was okay if he gave the wrong answers, but it was important that he stuck on to face the music.
I am told that the IITs have changed a lot now, and the most revered are those who are best at playing computer games and not debates. But let me leave that topic for another day.
Among technical institutes in India and especially in fields such as computer science, IISc was one of the best at the time I graduated. Perhaps, it still is, but I don't know of the latest ratings. Admission to the school of automation programme for MTech at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was much sought after.
Memories of my IIT days came back a couple of days ago, when I attended a lecture by the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies at IISc in Bangalore. The hall was jam-packed with thick-glassed, nerdy-looking students. The vociferous among them asked several tough questions on the UID project. But, sadly, the answers by Nandan Nilekani, the UIDAI chairman, were more evasive and less direct. Mr Nilekani focused on the role of 'Aadhaar', the 12-digit unique identification number, in the transformation of public services.
One youngster asked whether the Rs1,50,000 crore to be spent on the UID project would be worth it. The UIDAI chairman asked where he had got the number from. When the student mentioned the name of Professor Ramkumar and The Hindu newspaper, the chairman told him not to believe what newspapers write. Sadly, the chairman did not say what the UIDAI's actual budget is.
To another question about whether UID might give excessive information to the states, enabling them to target minorities, the answer was again evasive and academic. The chairman thought that it was up to the state governments to legislate against this possibility. Indeed, when the custodians of the law themselves target minorities (like we have seen in the case of Gujarat), how does the answer square up?
It doesn't require an investigator to see that the fair implementation of the law is the biggest problem in our country. While a Binayak Sen is condemned to jail, we know well how Suresh Kalmadi, at the centre of the Commonwealth Games scandal, and A Raja, who is alleged to have manipulated 2G spectrum allocation that is responsible for the telecom scam, are roaming scot-free. Surely, the UIDAI chairman is not unaware about this.
In answer to another question, the chairman said that even in the US the state has the power to gather data of its citizens, for purposes of national security. Again, what was left unsaid was that in the US, the real ID project, which gathers the biometrics of citizens has been stalled and has been struck down by a number of states.
To a third question about whether there was no better, cheaper way to stop the leakage from government departments, the UIDAI chairman asked the student to come up with a better solution. He did not explain what other options had been considered before arriving at the UID proposal. Surely, there could be a better solution, but it's not an issue that can be resolved on the spur of the moment.
The chairman did not say whether there was a systematic study undertaken on the various options open, their pluses and minuses, before deciding on spending a huge amount from the taxpayers' money on UID. And by the way, it has been conclusively proved that the major leakage of government aid is not due to a lack of proof of identity that UIDAI claims.
The chairman mentioned that 600 million rural people do not have a bank account. But what he did not say was that 1,400 people who have been given bank accounts in Nandurbar district in Maharashtra where the UID project was inaugurated, have zero deposits in their accounts and that they have never operated the bank accounts. Of what use is the bank account if there is no money to deposit in the account? How viable will the economics of such bank accounts be for the banks? Will banks now start charging a commission to account holders?
A couple of weeks ago, at a public function held in Bangalore, an information technology security expert, J T Desouza, demonstrated in full view of the people, how fingerprints could be faked to fool a fingerprint scanner. At the demonstration was none other than Karnataka IT secretary Vidyashankar who works with the UIDAI very closely. He promised to arrange this demonstration before the UIDAI's technical people. Like many other promises by UIDAI, this is also unfulfilled.
At the end of the day, I came out feeling that the young IISc students, on the threshold of a career, required mentoring, rather than an exercise in half-truths. But my biggest take-away from the programme was the sight of a couple of boys and girls from IISc demonstrating silently at the gate of the auditorium. A placard that one of them held, read: 'Happy New Fear'. I am happy to see that a new generation of young students, concerned about their country, is emerging.
(The author has a B Tech from IIT Bombay and a PhD from Columbia University, New York. He runs Teknotrends Software Pvt Ltd, a start-up that does cutting-edge work in the area of network security.)
