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

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

2614 - Social Development Programmes and UID Aadhar Pilots- Finance MInister writes to Chief Ministers of 16 States to expand number of districts for roll out


From: venkatesh nayak <venkatesh@humanrightsinitiative.org>
Date: 11 June 2012 15:12


Dear all,
Even as we debate the wisdom behind Unique Identification (UID) Aadhaar the Finance Ministry has written to the Chief Ministers of 16 States this month advising expansion of the number if districts where pilots will be rolled out linking UID to social development programmes. A copy of the press release issued by the Finance Ministry through the Press Information Bureau on 07 June, 2012 is attached. 

This document is also available at: http://finmin.nic.in/press_room/2012/FM_StateUT_07062012.pdf 

Strangely, except for dedicated UID-watchers nobody in the mass media seems to have noticed or reported about this letter.

 What has the Finance Ministry advised the States?
According to the press release the Union Finance Minister has written to the Chief Ministers of Kerala, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh(HP), Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Delhi, Puducherry, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh(MP), Andhra Pradesh(AP) and Maharashtra requesting them to expand the number of districts in their States chosen for implementing the pilots. Earlier fifty districts had been chosen. Now the Finance Ministry wants more districts to be identified for pilots.

The Finance Ministry is said to have written to the Chief Secretaries of these States requesting cooperation for the expeditious completion of the pilots. The pilots will cover social development programmes such as: Public Distribution System, LPG distribution, Kerosene disbursal, Government pension schemes, Janani Suraksha Yojana, Government Scholarships, Financial Inclusion, Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) and MGNREGS wage disbursal.  The Finance Minister has left it to the discretion of the Chief Ministers if they wish to add any more programmes to this list. The lessons learnt from the pilots will be of help while rolling out the scheme throughout the country.

What is problematic with this advisory to the States?
UID – Aadhar is being rolled out in the absence of any law made by Parliament authorising the Governments to collect demographic and biometric data from people. The department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance which vetted the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 rejected it for several reasons as an unviable idea. The NIAI Bill would have given statutory backing to UID-Aadhar if the law had been enacted by Parliament. The complete text of the report of his committee with reasons for rejection is attached. This report is also available at: http://164.100.47.134/lsscommittee/Finance/42Report.pdf 
UID-Aadhar is functioning only on the basis of an executive resolution.

One of the reasons why the parliamentary committee rejected the Bill was because it sought to make the Aadhaar numbers compulsory. When linked with social development programmes and schemes anybody who does not have a UID-Aadhar number would be disqualified at the gateway. However the latest advisory to the States seems to be an attempt to make it compulsory in all the 50 and more districts that the State Governments have been asked to identify.

The Parliamentary committee noted that the standards used for collecting biometrics such as iris pattern recognition were not internationally approved. Nevertheless UIDAI claims that several crores of people in India have been given Aadhaar numbers and now these will be linked to eligibility and payments under various social development programmes in the chosen districts.

Last but not the least- there is no legal regime for the protection of personal data collected under UID-Aadhar or any other such exercise. The person whose data is collected (data subject) has no control over its use, there is no duty on the UIDAI or its agencies to tell the data subject  how his/her personal information will be used. The data subject has no legal right to correct any errors in the personal data relating to him/her collected by UIDAI. Although the judiciary has recognized that every person is entitled to the fundamental right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution no legal architecture has been created for empowering the individual to control his/her data that is available with public and private agencies.

So for several reasons the urgency of implementing UID by linking it to social development programmes, particularly to PDS and MGNREGA is worrisome. When jobcards and bank/post office accounts already exist for the purpose of making payments under MGNREGA, what purpose will UID-Aadhar serve? Will a worker be denied payment of wages on the ground that he/she does not have a UID-Aadhar number? 

Will I have to enroll and obtain an Aadhar number before I can make a booking for my LPG cylinder refill?

Will an expectant mother be refused admission, medical services and monetary payment under Janani Suraksha Yojana by the primary health centre or the district hospital if she does not have an Aadhar number?

Will a farmer be refused loans under Kisan Credit Card if he/she does not have an Aadhar number?

There is simply no information about these issues in the public domain- only the rush and urgency of implementing the pilots is visible if one looked hard enough. All of this hugely problematic because the Government is not doing its mandated duty of complete proactive disclosure of facts and figures relating to the implementation of UID as is required under Section 4(1) of the Right to Information Act (RTI Act).

I urge readers to circulate this email widely and start using the RTI Act to pull out details of the actions being planned by the State Governments to act upon the Finance Minister’s advice. Kindly feed all information that you obtain, to the media so that people may debate the exercise of linking UID –Aadhar with social development programmes.

In order to access our previous email alerts on RTI and related issues please click on: http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65&Itemid=84 You will find the links at the top of this web page. If you do not wish to receive these email alerts please send an email to this address indicating your refusal.

Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
Venkatesh Nayak
Programme Coordinator
Access to Information Programme
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
B-117, First Floor, Sarvodaya Enclave
New Delhi- 110 017

Skype: venkatesh.nayak@skype.com
Alternate Email: nayak.venkatesh@gmail.com
Website: www.humanrightsinitiative.org
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