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

Saturday, October 1, 2011

1650 - UID under Seige - Rediff

Last updated on: September 30, 2011 12:25 IST
Sreelatha Menon in New Delhi

Image: Nandan Nilekani.
Photographs: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com  
   
 
What a difference two years can make.

In 2009, the Unique Identification Project spearheaded by the government's then golden boy, Nandan Nilekani, was a much publicised and pampered one.

Today, it has become everybody's favourite whipping boy.

The project chief aim was simple: to disseminate unique identification numbers to every resident of the country, chiefly benefiting those with no identity such as the poor and migrants who find it difficult to get access basic entitlements like a ration card, a phone connection or a bank account.

Image: A woman shows her voter identity card as she waits for
her turn to cast her ballot at a polling station in Bikaner.
Photographs: Vinay Joshi/Reuters    

The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India, after allowing the authority to collect data for 10 crore (100 million) people in 2010, never took up the matter again, while the Finance Ministry decided later to increase this number to 20 crore (200 million).

Things came to a head when the UIDAI came up with a proposal before the Finance Ministry last month seeking about Rs 14,841 crore (Rs 148.41 billion) for collecting data and issuing numbers to the entire population.

The Home Ministry was the first to cast a stone at the UIDAI proposal saying that it did not find the data collected by it reliable and that it would have to collect its own data for the National Population Register, which was to provide identity cards to people in coastal areas for security purposes.

Image: A voter registers his vote using his fingerprint.
Photographs: Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters    

This meant duplication of work, and cost.

What is embarrassing for the UIDAI, is that the data it has so far collected for 8.5 crore (85 million) people stands the possibility of being rejected by the National Population Registry whose officials say that they may collect data for these people all over again.

"We can collect the data for the whole country by 2014 and at half the cost," says a top official of the NPR.

And we collect the data from a person in his residence, and hence ours is reliable while the collection points for UIDAI are ad hoc, and through introducers. We cannot use this at all,'' says the official.

Image: A labourer displays her job card, given under the NREGA, 
plan at Korhar village near Patna.
Photographs: Reuters    

UIDAI director general R S Sharma says that if data on 20 crore (200 million) people collected till March 2012 is rejected it would be a loss of Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).

Sharma is at a loss to explain why the NPR can't trust UID's data since it is after all one of the registrars partnering with UIDAI in data collection.

"The other registrars collecting data are state governments, the same ones who help the Census,'' says Sharma.
Meanwhile the Home Ministry has called a conference of chief secretaries this week to emphasise the importance of collecting data through the NPR, which now seems to be competing with the other registrars appointed by UIDAI.

Image: Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates speaks with Nandan Nilekani.
Photographs: B Mathur/Reuters    

UIDAI pays Rs 50 per person for collection of data to the state, while the Census pays nothing and consequently the states have been giving more attention to the UIDAI work than to the NPR much to the annoyance of the latter.

The Home Ministry also has knives out for UIDAI due to what it feels are unnecessary expenses especially with respect to iris scanning.

The ministry points out that the Cabinet had given only an 'in principle' approval to iris scanning and that it has a 'huge cost implication'.

Image: Nandan Nilekani.
Photographs: Jagadeesh Nv/Reuters   
 

The total cost on NPR and National Identity cards (a new project of the Home Ministry) would be Rs 13,438 crore (Rs 134.38 billion).

The cost of UIDAI-Aadhar is projected at Rs 17,864 crore (Rs 178.64 billion).

"Thus an investment of Rs 31,302 crore (Rs 313.02 billion) would have to be made if NPR and UIDAI are implemented in parallel." it says.

It further says that the convergence of UIDAI and NPR and exclusion of iris. . . would reduce the cost by over Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion).

Sharma disagrees: "The iris scanner costs just Rs 23,000 while it used to cost Rs 100,000 earlier.

Image: New born babies rest inside a ward at a hospital in Lucknow.
Photographs: Pawan Kumar/Reuters    

A single scan costs Rs 4.40 and for the whole country it would cost just Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).

This is nothing compared to the Rs 6000 crore (Rs 60 billion) the Planning Commission is talking of", he says.

Sharma also argues that having multiple modes of identification is always better than a single one and prevents faking of identities.

The third accusation is levied by the Planning Commission, its parent body, which states that the expenses of the UIDAI are not routed through it and hence needs a separate financial advis#8744 preferably its own; to monitor UIDA, says Sharma.

Image: The Parliament House

The Commission by imposing its financial advisor on the UIDAI would be reversing its own notification which had earlier allowed the UIDAI financial advisor to send proposals directly to the Finance Secretary like all ministries do.

The last nail in the coffin seems to be the seemingly absurd declaration by the Reserve Bank of India this week that having a UID would not be enough to open a bank account and that an address proof would still be needed.

Image: The Surya-Kiran aerobatic team of the Indian Air Force
flies past the Indian flag.
Photographs: Jagadeesh Nv/Reuters    

Of course, all of this could have been easily avoided if the government passed legislation making UIDAI a statutory authority, which would have laid out its mandate in clear terms, vis a vis the role of all other institutions and ministries.

Its absence has bred rampant confusion and speculation.


Nilekani addressed the media on Thursday and said that the plan had the backing of the government.

"The Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia will clear the air once he returns from abroad but the UIDAI is on schedule to meeting its goals," he added.

Lets hope that for the sake of millions of Indians who have trouble proving their existence that he is right.