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, April 23, 2013

3245 - Losing your electronic ID by Mary Beard


Mary Beard 
April 13, 2013
Losing your electronic ID

You may recall that in an earlier post I lamented my lost University card. I had then got back from picking up my Classical Association Prize and the bubble was appropriately burst by discovering that my Uni card was not in the place it belonged. I was still then hoping it would re-appear.
The point about this little piece of plastic is that it gives you access to almost everything you need in the Univerisity: I need it to get into my Faculty Library after normal working hours, to get through the archway that leads to my college room after 8.00pm; it gives me access to my college SCR, and to the Faculty coffee room, xerox machine, post etc after closing time; it lets me unto the University Library and allows me to borrow books; it is even what I need to get Emergency Out of Hours treatment by the University Dentist.
In fact the reason I lost the damn thing was that I was working in the Faculty Building after hours and needed it every time I went out of the Library to the loo or to my office and needed to get back in again . So I had it convenient (and conveniently losable) in my pocket, instead of in my bag.
Anyway it didnt turn up over the weekend, and then started the marathon of getting it replaced and so back into my life. Let me underline that absolutely everyone involved in this process bent over backwards to be helpful, and not a single person even hinted what they must quite reasonably have felt: namely that I was a silly old thing who had got herself into this mess by losing the card in the first place. I couldn't fault them (and Thank You). But all the same what a palaver to get your identity back.
It went something like this.
On Sunday night I went online to find out what to do in these circumstances. It was very clear that you had to go through your Faculty Card Representative, and not approach the Card Office yourself. So I sent an email to my Card Rep -- and received a Vacation Message saying that she was on a week's leave. Fair enough, but what was I to do now?
So I sent a "Please Help" message to both our Faculty administrators: from one I got another vacation message, but the other was in town... and got back to me on Monday morning, and as luck would have she had been a Card Rep in a previous Faculty, so knew the ropes.
By Tuesday morning she had heard back from the Card Office who said they could process the application and reissue a card instantly. That was good news, until a couple of hours later they discovered that the photo they had of me was more than 10 years old, so they had to have a new one. I could go down to the Card Office and get a photo taken, and then pick up the card. Trouble was I was just swamped with work and panicked at the thought that I might find myself at the back of a slow moving queue (and, more to the point, at the thought that in those circumstances I might behave worse than I would hope to). So the husband comes to the rescue and we send off a digital passport image that he had "on file". Meanwhile the Faculty had given me a temporary replacement card so that I could get into the Library after 5 o'clock.
The card arrives at the Faculty on Wednesday at midday, and I thought all was now over -- until I discovered that it wouldnt actually work until it had been "activated" at each of my relevant institutions. And that, for a start, needed the Computer Officer in Faculty, who was on a job elsewhere.
So I went home slightly despondent and sent him a begging email. The good news was that he could activate it remotely, and by Wednesday late afternoon I had a card that worked for my Faculty Building -- and that only left the College bit, and the UL to do.
OK this isn't exactly a tragic story: 5 days without a Uni card isn't one of life's greatest hardships (though, in mitigation, I plead that I had a shopping list of work from hell last week, and even an hour kept out of the library risked making the whole bloody house of cards fall down).
But it did make me think about this whole computerization of benefits onto a single system. I had problems with losing my computerised ID in a relatively small institution, where I have some clout, and where everyone was keen to help. Just imagine how that would be in some vast mega-system, when you're only a very little cog in the wheel. And anyway your problems might not be self-inflicted (like my card loss), but they might just come from some glitch in those electronic synapses.
Then you'll not kept away from your books -- you'll be literally without your money-to-live-on. I dont think I'd fancy relying on wholly computerised universal credit.
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