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 28, 2012

2723 - UIDAI: And One ID for All - Data Quest



With the mandate to provide one unified ID, the UIDAI with judicious blend of technologies is creating new benchmarks in computing and biometric authentication


As we navigate through the dusty roads of India's Silicon Valley-Bengaluru-we hit the rather inhospitable stretch, the outer ring road that connects to Marathahalli-Sarjapur, which takes a whopping 2 hours drive during the morning peak hours. Despite being in the city fringes, a drive on this road will ultimately stress the patience of even the most seasoned drivers, due to extreme bad traffic and also the road conditions.

But that does not deter the global IT giants which have captives across the stretch doing cutting edge IT outsourcing. And as we pass one unmarked white building, which might be mistaken for any commercial complex, but as we step inside the gate it becomes clear that it's a High Security Zone (HSZ). It is in this very building that a revolution of sorts is happening under the able leadership of Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI. This nondescript building is the UIDAI technology center that processes thousands of UID applications on any given day and a data center, not far away, houses all the confidential data of the UID holders; no wonder this is called the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

What has made the impossible possible is the creation of technology framework and the architecture needed to capture about 121 crore data of the citizens and issuance of one common ID card. But it is the innovative and the judicious blend of technology that is enabling this mammoth exercise. Also, UIDAI typifies a shining example of how government can adopt technology in such a professional and seamless manner and all through its evolution, so far, it has created outstanding benchmarks for the world to follow. The technology center of UIDAI runs the world's largest biometric authentication project. The Network Operations Center (NOC) which processes in real time all the UID registration, is the brain or the nerve center of the whole UID exercise alongside the state-of-the-art data center.

UIDAI Technology Center
This center plays a pivotal role in enabling the whole delivery of UID cards because the basic idea behind Aadhaar is to create an universal, unique, national digital online identity, not tied to a specific scheme or department, that can be used by several agencies at the center, state, and local levels for service delivery. This requires a clean database in a structured format with certain mandatory fields filled out. In order to ensure uniqueness, biometrics is needed so that no person can get 2 identity numbers, no matter where in the country they reside.

Reflecting on this Dr Ashok Dalwai, deputy director general, technology center, UIDAI says,"Inclusion and over inclusion are big problems in this part of the world. Some have identities and others do not have. When we talk about UID, it is not for the exclusive, it is for every Indian. The ultimate aim is to extend it to 121 crore people of India."

The need for UID is that the existing IDs do not prove the uniqueness nor are they universal. Conventional IDs like the passport (less than 10% of India's population have access to passports), voter ID, etc, have their limitations in terms of coverage and eligibility, and hence UID is the vital element in providing universal ID for every citizen irrespective of his social and economical stature.
UIDAI's approach is to solve the problem of unique identification and to go digital and online. UIDAI's IT solution was designed after studying the world's best national identity systems and other large-scale computing projects, while innovating and adapting for India's specific context and requirements," says Dalwai.

Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI quips, "This is the first ID that travels across India and this national mobility and portability makes it indeed a unique one. Our idea with UID is to open the gateway for services and it will act as Know Your Customer (KYC) for many services, from insurance to mobile phone connections, by enabling a one-stop ID proof."

The 2 key technology pillars from the infrastructure side are data center and NOC. In the recent hand-holding exercise with media, the NOC was showcased and the kind of mission critical role it plays. The NOC has been built by using commodity x86 blade servers that enable easier scaling up of computing power as the enrolments grow. The NOC keeps the tab of enrolments in real time and does the complicated task of screening the applications by weeding out fake and duplicate registrations.

The solution for Aadhaar is the adoption of an open scale-out design for technology along with an ecosystem based approach to the field operations while collecting multi-modal biometrics. Sources say that the solution balances speed, scale, quality, and cost while adhering to the country's democratic principles, constitutional framework, and government's process. The solution which involved several innovations and adaptations to suit India's context is now proven with 18+ crore enrolments across 32+ states and UTs. Dalwai says, "The technology is now being acknowledged as among the largest and the best identification system in the world."

Biometrics
One of the hallmarks of the UIDAI technology backbone is the extensive use of biometrics. Probably, this is the world's biggest deployment and usage of biometrics involving 121 crore people, once the entire population comes in the ambit of the UIDAI. The UIDAI biometric system architects have studied the best global practices and adapted them to the Indian context and requirements. In designing the biometric system, UIDAI reviewed the existing state-of-the-art, consulted with the world's top biometric experts, conducted a PoC study across the states, and built a biometric system that is currently considered to be the world's best.

The uniqueness of the UIDAI's biometric system is its multi-modal approach. The UID biometric committee chose fingerprint, iris, and face photograph as it is necessary to de-duplicate 121 crore residents. Since the large portion of the rural population in India works on agriculture or other manual labor, it becomes important not to rely on fingerprints (which may have worn out ridges) but to also capture the 2 iris images.

According to the government sources, the UID project is the latest among the sequence of progressive transformative technologies that India has executed in the last 3 decades. And once the entire screening process of all the citizens gets completed, it will create new benchmarks in IT management using a combination of best practices.