16 DEC, 2011, 10.33AM IST,
M RAJSHEKHAR,ET BUREAU
NEW DELHI: For most people, the news is still sinking in. The Standing Committee for Finance has rejected the National Identification Authority of India Bill. Worse, it has advised the government to "reconsider and review the UID scheme" itself.
But why has the committee rejected the UIDAI Bill? Why does it want the scheme itself to be reconsidered? On Tuesday, the Committee's report was placed in the Parliament. Looking for answers, ET went through the report. A snapshot of its reservations is presented below.
Why was the UIDAI functioning even before the Bill was passed?
When asked by the committee why the UIDAI was collecting information and issuing numbers even before the bill became law, the Ministry of Planning told the Standing Committee: "The Government is not debarred from exercising its executive power in the areas which are not regulated by specific legislation." It also said that till such legislation is framed, the Authority can function under the executive order issued by the Government.
The committee has described this executive action as "unethical and violative of Parliament's prerogatives".
Its report also says the "Committee are at a loss to understand as to how the UIDAI, without statutory power, could address key issues concerning their basic functioning and initiate proceedings against the defaulters and penalize them."
It also says that "The collection of biometric information and its linkage with personal information of individuals without amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 as well as the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, appears to be beyond the scope of subordinate legislation, which needs to be examined in detail by Parliament."
THE UK ABANDONED ITS NATIONAL ID CARD PROGRAMME:
In response, the Ministry of Planning said the two programmes were different. The UK approached the programme from a security perspective. The UID scheme is envisaged as a means to enhance the delivery of welfare s benefits and services.
For its part, the committee refers to a report by the London School of Economics on the UK identity project, which flags possible risks like high costs, complexity, untested unreliable technology, possibility of risk to safety and security of citizens, requirement of high standard security measures which might again escalate operational costs. And says, "As these findings are very much relevant and applicable to the UID scheme, they should have been seriously considered."
IS LACK OF IDENTITY PROOF THE REASON WHY THE POOR ARE EXCLUDED FROM WELFARE PROGRAMMES:
According to the Ministry of Planning, the operationalisation of Aadhaar will make it possible to link entitlements to targeted beneficaries. "With Aadhaar number integration in various Government schemes, the identity of the beneficiary gets established, by which it is ensured that the government scheme benefits reach the intended beneficiaries."
But, the committee noted, "Even if the aadhaar number links entitlements to targeted beneficiaries, it may not ensure that beneficiaries have been correctly identified. Thus, the present problem of proper identification would persist."
WHAT ABOUT PRIVACY:
The Ministry of Planning told the Committee that access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, prohibiting other databases from storing aadhaar numbers, securing confidentiality of information with the registrars, etc, would be addressed in a larger data protection legislation. This legislation is currently being drafted by the Department of Personnel and Training.
The committee has said that the enactment of this data protection law is a "pre-requisite for any law that deals with large scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases. In the absence of data protection legislation, it would be difficult to deal with the issues like access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, linking and matching of data bases and securing confidentiality of information etc."
FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY:
When asked to submit details of feasibility studies covering all aspects of the UID scheme such as setting up of the proposed NIDAI, and cost-benefit analysis, the Ministry submitted that: "No committee has been set up to study the financial implications of the UID scheme."
Says the report: "The Committee note that the Ministry of Planning have admitted that
(a) no committee has been constituted to study the financial implications of the UID scheme; and
(b) comparative costs of the aadhaar number and various existing ID documents are also not available. The Committee also note that Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the UID Scheme has been done much later in April, 2011.
The Committee thus strongly disapprove of the hasty manner in which the UID scheme has been approved. Unlike many other schemes / projects, no comprehensive feasibility study, which ought to have been done before approving such an expensive scheme, has been done involving all aspects of the UID scheme including cost-benefit analysis, comparative costs of aadhaar number and various forms of existing identity, financial implications and prevention of identity theft, for example, using hologram enabled ration card to eliminate fake and duplicate beneficiaries."
TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY:
When asked to explain the technical architecture of the UID scheme, the Ministry of Planning said: "The UID project is a complex technology project. Nowhere in the world has such a large biometric database of a billion people being maintained. The frontiers of technology in biometrics are being tested and used in the project."
However, the Committee refers to the report by the Biometrics Standards Committee set up by the UIDAI, which says: "de-duplication of the magnitude required by the UIDAI has never been implemented in the world. In the global context, a de-duplication accuracy of 99% has been achieved so far, using good quality fingerprints against a database of up to fifty million."
This report goes on to say that, "retaining efficacy while scaling the database size from fifty million to a billion has not been adequately analyzed.
Second, fingerprint quality, the most important variable for determining de-duplication accuracy, has not been studied in depth in the Indian context."
Despite, says the standing committee report, "adverse observations by the UIDAI's Biometrics Standards Committee on error rates of biometrics, the UIDAI is collecting the biometric information. It is also not known as to whether the proof of concept studies and assessment studies undertaken by the UIDAI have explored the possibilities of maintaining accuracy to a large level of enrolment of 1.2 billion people. Therefore, considering the possible limitations in applications of technology available now or in the near future, the Committee would believe that it is unlikely that the proposed objectives of the UID scheme could be achieved."
NATIONAL SECURITY:
Should illegal residents get cards? On the first, the Committee says: The Committee are unable to understand the rationale of expanding the scheme to persons who are not citizens, as this entails numerous benefits proposed by the Government. It also says that "the possibility of possession of aadhaar numbers by illegal residents through false affidavits / introducer system cannot be ruled out."
It is sweeping, damning feedback. The report now leaves the Manmohan Singh government in a tough place. It has to decide whether to reject the Committee report or overhaul the UIDAI project given the committee's sweeping rejection. The report also makes it harder for the NPR to go on collecting biometric information without making the necessary changes to the Citizenship Act. But it also exposes, as with the FDI in Retail snafu, the government's great taste for wanting to short circuit the parliamentary process.
