By Newzfirst Correspondent 9/7/11
BANGALORE - “UID is not mere the matter of personal privacy but also the matter of national security. Moreover there is no clarity in the UID project and no answers for the questions rose by concerned citizens” said Dr. Usha Ramanathan, an internationally recognized expert on law and poverty and an independent law researcher.
Dr. Usha Ramanathan has devoted her attention to a number of specific issues such as the Bhopal gas disaster, the Narmada valley dams, slum eviction in Delhi, corporate accountability and lately the proposed UID, its implications for freedom and rights.
Addressing the gathering of people from cross section of society at Indian Institute of Science she said, “UID project is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions, for which there are answers neither with the government nor with the persons behind UIDA’
Several questions are still unanswered about the UID project, about markers of identity, exclusion, convergence, surveillance, privacy, the certainty of biometrics, the companies involved, personal security, national security, technological determinism, the lawlessness of the project. These have been met with resounding silence, she said.
Initially UIDA assured the privacy and confidentiality of the individual’s data, subsequently it was deliberately breached and being shared with many companies and agencies. It also assured to seek limited protocol or information from the citizens, but now all the micro details of the individuals are being sought. The way assurances are wrecked by the UID Authority, the project will not remain optional for the citizens and would be made compulsory in the future, she asserted.
“A former director of CIA is one of the board members of a corporate company that is involved in this project; how could one deny the conspiracy theory in this stage” she questioned saying, “not mere individual’s privacy is under threat but national security too”
Explaining the inexactness involved in project she said, “Moreover, the process of enrollment to database, de-duplication of enrollments and its authentication in UID project are not error free, fool proof and theft proof, she said by illustrating innumerable evident instances of wrong entries done, failure of fingerprint & eyelid scanning on various professional and malnutrition induced cataract grounds, reproduction of fingerprints and theft of data using electronic instruments. And unfortunately, UIDA has no proper monitoring system into these issues.”
Criticizing the ignorance of Government in this regard she said, “It is portraying the possession of UID number as very essential to prove the identity of one’s self and to avail the different services and privileges of bank account, LPG, NREGA, PDS, insurances and etc”
“The under privileged, economically weaker, politically marginalized and socially backward people are enrolling to UID out of fear and pain of losing identity” she added.
Being a constitutional proficient she said “Importantly, the law and legality are being deserted in this UID project, as no serious discussions were done in the parliament so far, no legal status or sanction of law and legislation granted for either information seeker or this project. Even standing committee has expressed dissatisfaction over these issues”
“Some tries to justify this UID number with that of Social Security number of US, in fact SSN guarantees social security for the citizens in US and UID guarantees nothing in India” she asserted.
“What makes us more worried is the absence of a framework to ask any questions or seek any clarifications; so far no parameter or eligibility criteria for assigning this projects to some companies is made public, resulting in more suspicions” expressing the concerns she said.
Questioning the viability and financing she said, “Feasibility of applying this kind of technology based project over the huge population of India is not at all researched. Now, the whole exercise is nothing but an experiment. Alas, no meticulous budget has been allocated by Government of India to this project. Nobody including men behind the project has the idea of the cost. The estimation varies between 45 thousand crore to 1 lakh 50 thousand crore.”
UID, Police functioning and Security:
Throwing light on poor and suspicious functioning of police in India she denied any extraordinary contribution of UID towards controlling crime and terror, rather she expressed the apprehensions over the individual’s privacy and security by quoting examples of mis-utilization of information.
“Police in India is more dependent on laws like TADA, confessions out of torture and methods like narco analysis, rather than gathering evidence which is a basic and essential requirement of law. As our society is not much into ‘Rule of Law’ there are very chances of mis-utilization of the individual’s information.” she rationalized.
“If Wikileaks could succeed in accessing diplomatic cables of various nations, then what is the guarantee that the information of citizens would not be accessed by somebody? she questioned."
“All the information is accessible to National Intelligence Grid, to which about 11 agencies like IB and RAW are associated and these agencies do not fall under RTI.” she added.
UID and medical ethics:
Pointing out the phenomenon of India being transformed into human testing centre and pharma laboratory, she recalled the opposition of Medical Ethics Committee to proposed advantage of access to the confidential medical and health records of an individual by UID scheme.
UID and corporate interests:
Flaying the idea of converting UIDA into self sufficient revenue developmental model she expressed the worries of losing the government control over the institution.
“The trend of creating projects even if there is no utilization for general public, just for grow the business and finding the market, by tech corporates is a dangerous development. Checking the data theft itself is a billion dolor enterprises in US today.” she added.
Quoting how an individual is being enslaved by various forces, she said “The organic process of development of an individual from slave to subject to citizen is being reversed by UID”
Dr. Usha Ramanathan has devoted her attention to a number of specific issues such as the Bhopal gas disaster, the Narmada valley dams, slum eviction in Delhi, corporate accountability and lately the proposed UID, its implications for freedom and rights.
Addressing the gathering of people from cross section of society at Indian Institute of Science she said, “UID project is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions, for which there are answers neither with the government nor with the persons behind UIDA’
Several questions are still unanswered about the UID project, about markers of identity, exclusion, convergence, surveillance, privacy, the certainty of biometrics, the companies involved, personal security, national security, technological determinism, the lawlessness of the project. These have been met with resounding silence, she said.
Initially UIDA assured the privacy and confidentiality of the individual’s data, subsequently it was deliberately breached and being shared with many companies and agencies. It also assured to seek limited protocol or information from the citizens, but now all the micro details of the individuals are being sought. The way assurances are wrecked by the UID Authority, the project will not remain optional for the citizens and would be made compulsory in the future, she asserted.
“A former director of CIA is one of the board members of a corporate company that is involved in this project; how could one deny the conspiracy theory in this stage” she questioned saying, “not mere individual’s privacy is under threat but national security too”
Explaining the inexactness involved in project she said, “Moreover, the process of enrollment to database, de-duplication of enrollments and its authentication in UID project are not error free, fool proof and theft proof, she said by illustrating innumerable evident instances of wrong entries done, failure of fingerprint & eyelid scanning on various professional and malnutrition induced cataract grounds, reproduction of fingerprints and theft of data using electronic instruments. And unfortunately, UIDA has no proper monitoring system into these issues.”
Criticizing the ignorance of Government in this regard she said, “It is portraying the possession of UID number as very essential to prove the identity of one’s self and to avail the different services and privileges of bank account, LPG, NREGA, PDS, insurances and etc”
“The under privileged, economically weaker, politically marginalized and socially backward people are enrolling to UID out of fear and pain of losing identity” she added.
Being a constitutional proficient she said “Importantly, the law and legality are being deserted in this UID project, as no serious discussions were done in the parliament so far, no legal status or sanction of law and legislation granted for either information seeker or this project. Even standing committee has expressed dissatisfaction over these issues”
“Some tries to justify this UID number with that of Social Security number of US, in fact SSN guarantees social security for the citizens in US and UID guarantees nothing in India” she asserted.
“What makes us more worried is the absence of a framework to ask any questions or seek any clarifications; so far no parameter or eligibility criteria for assigning this projects to some companies is made public, resulting in more suspicions” expressing the concerns she said.
Questioning the viability and financing she said, “Feasibility of applying this kind of technology based project over the huge population of India is not at all researched. Now, the whole exercise is nothing but an experiment. Alas, no meticulous budget has been allocated by Government of India to this project. Nobody including men behind the project has the idea of the cost. The estimation varies between 45 thousand crore to 1 lakh 50 thousand crore.”
UID, Police functioning and Security:
Throwing light on poor and suspicious functioning of police in India she denied any extraordinary contribution of UID towards controlling crime and terror, rather she expressed the apprehensions over the individual’s privacy and security by quoting examples of mis-utilization of information.
“Police in India is more dependent on laws like TADA, confessions out of torture and methods like narco analysis, rather than gathering evidence which is a basic and essential requirement of law. As our society is not much into ‘Rule of Law’ there are very chances of mis-utilization of the individual’s information.” she rationalized.
“If Wikileaks could succeed in accessing diplomatic cables of various nations, then what is the guarantee that the information of citizens would not be accessed by somebody? she questioned."
“All the information is accessible to National Intelligence Grid, to which about 11 agencies like IB and RAW are associated and these agencies do not fall under RTI.” she added.
UID and medical ethics:
Pointing out the phenomenon of India being transformed into human testing centre and pharma laboratory, she recalled the opposition of Medical Ethics Committee to proposed advantage of access to the confidential medical and health records of an individual by UID scheme.
UID and corporate interests:
Flaying the idea of converting UIDA into self sufficient revenue developmental model she expressed the worries of losing the government control over the institution.
“The trend of creating projects even if there is no utilization for general public, just for grow the business and finding the market, by tech corporates is a dangerous development. Checking the data theft itself is a billion dolor enterprises in US today.” she added.
Quoting how an individual is being enslaved by various forces, she said “The organic process of development of an individual from slave to subject to citizen is being reversed by UID”
