BANGALORE, September 17, 2011
Making a point: (From left) Public Relations Officer, e-governance, T. Prabhakar; UIDAI Regional Deputy Director Ashok Dalwai; Managing Trustee of Grahak Shakti Somashekar V.K.; and civic activist Mathew Thomas at a panel discussion in Bangalore on Friday. — photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
Unease, uncertainty and even anger were at display by the critics of the Unique Identity Card (UID), also called “Aadhaar”, at a debate on the pros and cons of the project here on Friday.
Somashekar V.K., managing trustee of a citizen's awareness group, Grahak Shakti, called the UID an unnecessary expenditure with no tangible benefits. “For a project of such a magnitude, they have neither conducted a feasibility report nor a detailed project report,” he said and alleged that the project was being carried out with some ulterior commercial interest in mind.
Mathew Thomas from Citizen's Action Forum reinforced Mr. Somashekar's point saying that the storing of the identity of crores of people in a database raised ethical and security questions.
To this, UID Authority of India (UIDAI) Regional Deputy Director Ashok Dalwai said, “The UID is an established, recognised card that can serve as an indisputable identity proof anywhere in the country.” Allaying fears of security implications, he said the system had layers of encryption preventing its access to unauthorised people.
Claiming that the social benefits of a universal identity system was immense, Mr. Dalwai said, “In the long-term, the card would reduce the number of bogus ration cards, and could even help in extending credit to the rural poor when they use their UID number for transactions.”
T. Prabhakar, Public Relations Officer, e-governance Department, Karnataka, spoke.
During the interaction session, many of those gathered at the Students' Christian Movement of India House off Mission Road, questioned the legality of the project which hadn't yet received Parliament's approval.
They also expressed concern about the possibility of misuse of the information in the database.
Somashekar V.K., managing trustee of a citizen's awareness group, Grahak Shakti, called the UID an unnecessary expenditure with no tangible benefits. “For a project of such a magnitude, they have neither conducted a feasibility report nor a detailed project report,” he said and alleged that the project was being carried out with some ulterior commercial interest in mind.
Mathew Thomas from Citizen's Action Forum reinforced Mr. Somashekar's point saying that the storing of the identity of crores of people in a database raised ethical and security questions.
To this, UID Authority of India (UIDAI) Regional Deputy Director Ashok Dalwai said, “The UID is an established, recognised card that can serve as an indisputable identity proof anywhere in the country.” Allaying fears of security implications, he said the system had layers of encryption preventing its access to unauthorised people.
Claiming that the social benefits of a universal identity system was immense, Mr. Dalwai said, “In the long-term, the card would reduce the number of bogus ration cards, and could even help in extending credit to the rural poor when they use their UID number for transactions.”
T. Prabhakar, Public Relations Officer, e-governance Department, Karnataka, spoke.
During the interaction session, many of those gathered at the Students' Christian Movement of India House off Mission Road, questioned the legality of the project which hadn't yet received Parliament's approval.
They also expressed concern about the possibility of misuse of the information in the database.