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

Thursday, November 3, 2011

1757 - An eye on identity - Hindustan Times

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) completed a year of the launch of the Unique Identification number (UID), Aadhaar, on September 29. The Authority has already enrolled 100 million individuals and generated more than 37.5 million UID numbers. It has also achieved the fantastic feat of enrolling 1 million residents in one day and is progressing well towards reaching its mandate of generating 600 million numbers by 2014. As of now, it has achieved the capability of enrolling 400 million persons per year.

Despite such good progress, there have been questions on cost escalation, the Authority’s scope of work and the wisdom of running such a massive programme. The Union finance and home ministries as well as the Planning Commission (to which the Authority is attached) have also expressed their concerns on the way the project is moving forward. With the National Population Registry (NPR) being created as part of the Census 2011 operations and its enrolment process almost similar to the UIDAI, there have been questions on the duplication of work (enrolment) and the costs involved. After these concerns were raised, the Authority came out to explain the uniqueness of the UID project and the fact that the Indian government has already pledged financial support to it.

But there are a few issues that need to be addressed so that the vision and approach behind Aadhaar remain clear and it can achieve its targets within the set timeframe. On the controversy around the duplication of work issue, the Cabinet Committee on UID is supposed to meet very soon to clear the air.

To understand the issues at hand, it is important to go into the heart of the confusion. In its mandate, the Authority has clearly laid down how it would build the required technical infrastructure and network to support the enrolment process and generate and distribute the UID numbers. The Authority plans to leverage the existing infrastructure (both in the government and private sector) and also act as a regulatory authority. It will manage the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR), which will issue the UID numbers, update residents’ information and authenticate identity of residents.

In the process, the Authority will involve multiple registrars to facilitate the enrolment process and interact with the residents. About 50 registrars — mostly state governments, Life Insurance Corporation of India, banks, oil companies and the National Population Registry — have started doing this job of collecting demographic information and biometric details (photo, fingerprints and iris of all residents over the age five years).

The trouble started with the NPR doubting the authenticity of the data being collected by the registrars, forgetting that much of such data is being collected by government agencies and employees who are also NPR’s foot-soldiers. In fact, in March, the Authority and the Registry signed a Memorandum of Understanding on how they can work together. To avoid any duplication, they decided to follow this procedure: the Registry after collecting its data would send them to the Authority and the latter would then de-duplicate and generate an Aadhaar number.

But there is another problem: other registrars have already started enrolling residents and there would be a huge database of duplicate information. So what can be done about these since the costs of collecting biometric data (particularly iris) is high. According to some estimates, these duplicate databases could cost the government more than a couple of thousand of crores of rupees.

The question remains that since it was well known that the NPR would be generated around the Census 2011, why was it not aligned to the Authority’s registry selection process? In fact, the other registrars should have been given a specific mandate or NPR should have been mandated to use the database of the other registrars of the Authority.

Both these projects have advantages and disadvantages. But now it is important to take a decision on these problems since the next 500 million in the current phase and the remaining 600 million will cover the total population of India. The duplication around the issuance of identity cards should be addressed at this stage. Moreover, there should be an effort to make both processes homologous since there are now discussions that Aadhaar numbers will be printed on identity cards and the NPR respondents will also receive this in the same format.

Further, a midcourse review of the security and confidentiality systems governing such a massive central registry and the registrars’ databases must be made to ensure that the systems are hacker-proof.

Since the online authentication will be done on a massive scale, it will be wise to evaluate the robustness of the technology, its scalability and the resilience of the infrastructure. It is only when the security and sustainability of the project is verified, can it give other countries a chance of exploring the possibility of implementing such a scheme.

However, at this point, it is most important to save the taxpayers’ money from being spent unwisely and strengthen the Authority to accomplish its mission.

Subimal Bhattacharjee heads a multinational defence corporation and writes on issues of technology and security

The views expressed by the author are personal

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/764150.aspx