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

Sunday, May 27, 2012

2595 - Aadhaar: The crisis of identity cards - Deccan Herald

Aadhaar: The crisis of identity cards

Bangalore, May 26 2012, DHNS:

An Aadhaar card is supposed to make you unique and help track your identity. Yet, this Rs 8,000-crore project can’t even tell you where your Aadhaar letter is! For, the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) has no mechanism in place to monitor the movement of letters despatched to applicants.

UIDAI claims the Authority and the Department of Posts, roped in to deliver the cards, have tracking systems to monitor whether the Aadhaar letter has reached the intended person. But a reality check suggests otherwise.

Try logging on to the India Post website and feed your enrolment details. You are likely to get the message: “Sorry! We could not find item number in our system for this EID number.” The UIDAI is of not much help. The portal indicates, in most cases, whether the ID number has been generated or not. If the ID has been generated, the site will show the date and time.

No monitoring
To check whether the tracking system was working, Deccan Herald sent across four mails. The responses in each case indicated enough that there was no monitoring of the movement of despatched letters.

Months of waiting had left many applicants impatient. The UIDAI help desk had a routine response for them: “We have checked the status of the enrolment ID furnished by you and are happy to inform that an Aadhaar number has already been generated for the ID mentioned.

“However, due to the tremendous response we have received during enrolments, we initially faced some challenges in printing and dispatch. We have currently augmented the Aadhaar letter printing capacity and are printing about 15 lakh letters per day to clear the backlog at the earliest,” said the help desk.

The Authority expected the Aadhaar letters for all old cases to be printed by May end. They were supposed to reach the applicants by June 2012.

In one case, the status was updated within a couple of days after the help desk reply stated that the letter would reach the recipient “shortly”.

The letter, in fact, had been delivered in the second week of December last year.

Almost an identical reply is now in store for the beneficiaries, who are yet to receive the letters.

This, more than 10 months after the enrolment in the City. Interestingly, many applicants waiting for the letter had enrolled in the same centre. The UIDAI claimed that the Aadhaar letters are returned in five cases - insufficient address, addressee cannot be located, letter refused by addressee, deceased and unclaimed.

However, the system will not generate an acknowledgment slip if the address is insufficient. Besides, one has to provide address proof at the time of enrolment.