AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 2128 - Question marks for Indian UID scheme

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

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

2128 - Question marks for Indian UID scheme - Security Document World

19 December 2011

This hasn’t been the best of months for the Indian UIDAI scheme. A Parliamentary Committee has rejected the bill governing the project to assign unique IDs to all Indian nationals.

Even more worrying, the Standing Committee on Finance last week issued a report advising the government to reconsider and review the UID scheme.

The committee report said the UIDAI scheme lacked clarity on ’even the basic purpose of issuing Aadhaar number’.

The Standing Committee has said: “It is also not clear that the UID scheme would continue beyond the coverage of 200 million of the total population, the mandate given to the UIDAI. In case the government does not give further mandate, the whole exercise would become futile.”

One expert giving evidence to the committee – Dr R Ramakumar – said: "…it has been proven again and again that in the Indian environment, the failure to enrol with fingerprints is as high as 15% due to the prevalence of a huge population dependent on manual labour. These are essentially the poor and marginalised sections of the society. So, while the poor do indeed need identity proofs, aadhaar is not the right way to do that..."

The Ministry in its written reply stated, among other things, that: “While there may be a number of factors contributing to the failure to enrol (like geography, age groups, occupation etc.) and the figures quoted…… may not hold good in all situations, failure to enrol is a reality…. For enrolment purpose, UIDAI has already built in processes to handle biometric exceptions."

The committee also questioned the rationale of expanding the scheme to persons who are not citizens, as it ‘entails numerous benefits proposed by the government’. The Ministry of Planning stated in its written reply that the Aadhaar number is not a proof of citizenship or domicile but only confirms identity.

The Committee was also concerned with the ease with which a person could get an Aadhaar. It noted a news item dated 6th September, 2011, in which it was reported that the Ministry of Home Affairs identified flaws in the enrolment process followed by the UIDAI, citing cases where people have got Aadhaar numbers on the basis of false affidavits.

The committee was interested to hear about experiences of similar schemes across the world, noting the abandoned ID card project in the UK.

The Ministry responded that there are significant differences between the UK‘s ID card project and the UID project and to equate the two would not be appropriate. The main differences were detailed as follows:

The UK system involved issuing a card which stored the information of the individual including their biometrics on the card. UID scheme involves issuing a number. No card containing the biometric information is being issued. UK already has the National insurance number which is used often as a means to verify the identity of the individual.

The statutory framework envisaged made it mandatory to have the UK ID card. Aadhaar number is not mandatory.

In the UK, the legislative framework and structure approached it from a security perspective. The context and need in India is different. The UID scheme is envisaged as a mean to enhance the delivery of welfare benefits and services.

The Committee asked about the high degree of assumptions made into the reliability of biometric technology adopted by the UIDAI and the probability of system failures. In light of those assumptions, the Committee asked, whether the huge costs being incurred (the total cost of the UID scheme may run up to Rs. 1,50,000 crore) were prudent or affordable.

The Ministry stated in a written reply: "UIDAI is cognizant of the fact that biometric matching (which is a patterns matching) by its very nature will suffer from inaccuracy. However, these inaccuracy levels are less than 1%. This cannot be a reason for not attempting to use the technology. It is well acknowledged that there will be failures in authentication for various reasons. After Proof of Concept studies on authentication, appropriate policies and processes will be developed to take care of situations where failure occurs for various reasons.