AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 2054 - Will UID and Aadhar card scheme overcome fears?

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

Friday, December 9, 2011

2054 - Will UID and Aadhar card scheme overcome fears?

8th Dec 2011

Coming Tuesday on December 13, 2011 Nandan Nilekani would be delivering a lecture on the U.I.D. Project at the India International Center, New Delhi. But even as one of India’s brightest software personnel and cabinet minister rank technocrat would be preparing his speech to support this much celebrated project, a storm is brewing about scrapping the whole Unique Identification Authority Project.

India Today reported on December 8, 2011 that a parliamentary committee is set to reject the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 rocking not only celebrity Chief of UIDAI Nandan Nilekani but the whole UID project which was termed as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s pet project.

Mr. Nilekani was keen on the enactment of the Bill so that a statutory National Identification Authority could be established.

The BJP leader Yashwant Sinha headed Parliament’s standing committee on finance has indicated near unanimous view about the withdrawal of the present Bill, reported India Today through unnamed sources. The committee is of the view that the UID scheme has been conceptualised without any clarity or purpose and is riddled with serious lacunae in its content and execution.

The four major objections are: -inclusion of ” residents” as opposed to “citizens”; issues related to privacy of those being assigned the UID numbers; duplication of the work being done for preparing the National Population Register ( NPR) using the same biometric attributes; and the massive expenditure that the project entails, India Today reported.

The committee expressed fear about misuse of data being collected for Aadhar since private organisations and individuals are involved in the implementation process. It has also questioned the technology used in Aadhaar, terming it as “unreliable and untested”.

Already over 5.75 million UID cards have been issued countrywide. The cumulative revised budget estimates of the project, launched in 2009, is Rs.1,660 crore for 2010- 11 and 2011-12 put together. More than Rs.556 crore has already been spent on the scheme.

The project has also been opposed by the finance ministry expressing concern at the lack of coordination with the implementing agency and the government. The home ministry is learnt to have criticised the efficacy of the interlocutor system in implementing Aadhaar.

This has come as a shock even as UID authorities aim to attain 80 per cent coverage by March 2012. UID issued Aadhaar car is being used in states like Madhya Pradesh to increase the percentage of enrollments in school and the plan is to use it to broad base and ensure proper distribution of government benefits. On August 20 a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Unique Identification Authority of India and the Government of Bihar. Reserve Bank of India said in its September 28, 2011 notification that the UIDAI containing details of name, address and Aadhaar number, could be an officially valid document. The project would reduce the cost of verification of identity for the private sector as well.

UID project could also serve a backbone (of verification) for the delivery of rural banking services via the banking correspondents model, as well as payments for projects like NREGA at common service centers. Jharkhand has been a role model in using the UID to ensure NREGS payments reach only the true beneficiaries. The Jharkhand success has been seen as the way forward to ensure success of India’s welfare programmes — that deliver benefits of about 3,00,000 crore on paper, but sizeably less in real — into cash transfers.

UID has the potential to be a change maker in India’s inability to change its systemic failure of schemes. Objections and concerns apart, the scrapping of the UID project would be a serious setback. However, the concerns raised by the Parliamentary standing committee are valid. Will Nandan Nilekani’s team pull a miracle and overcome the concerns raised?