5504 - Bachchan, Parrikar, Ponting, Sachin are ‘beneficiaries’ of MNREGA in Goa - TNN

Bachchan, Parrikar, Ponting, Sachin are ‘beneficiaries’ of MNREGA in Goa

Joaquim Fernandes,TNN | Apr 26, 2014, 07.02 PM IST

PANAJI: The names of Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, Indian cricketing wizard Sachin Tendulkar and other film stars and international cricketers figure in the list of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in the Goan village of Chimbel, barely five kilometers from Panaji.

The startling information was brought to light by Goa Parivartan Manch adviser advocate Yatish Naik at a news conference in Panaji on Saturday.

Not only is the Goa chief minister's name registered as the card holder in Chimbel under the MNREGA scheme, which guarantees 100 days of unskilled work at the rate of about Rs 150 per day, Amitabh Bachchan's entire family — from son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, wife Jaya Bachchan and even now-expired mother Teji Bachchan figure on the list.

Naik has written to the President of India Pranab Mukherjee demanding a thorough inquiry into what he described as a "multi-crore scam." Naik and other members of the Goa Parivartan Manch also met Goa governor Bharat Vir Wanchoo seeking his intervention for an investigation into the scam.

Other celebrities that are listed as beneficiaries include Riky Ponting (misspelt name of Australian cricketer) and his apparent family with names like Micky Ponting, Rosy Ponting, a series of names of the Tendulkar family starting with Sachin, Anjali, Sara and Arjun.

Other celebrities in the list include Sourav and Donna Ganguly, Amir Khan, Kapil Dev, Virendra Sehwag and a series of names with the surname of "Paparazi."

Naik said he will now obtain details of how much money was paid to these people and which government authorities colluded to register these names as beneficiaries.

5503 - Withdraw orders making Aadhaar mandatory for any service: SC to Centre - IBN Live

Withdraw orders making Aadhaar mandatory for any service: SC to Centre

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed the Government of India to withdraw all orders, which make the Aadhaar card mandatory for availing any service. The court has also directed the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) not to share any information pertaining to an Aadhaar card holder with any government agency without the prior permission of the card holder.

The Supreme Court was hearing the petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of Aadhaar card with those opposing the mega project saying it was not backed by any statute and compromises with national security.

ALSO SEE 576 million Aadhaar cards issued

Further, a three-judge bench headed by Justice BS Chauhan was also told that the project not only violates the right to privacy but the "biometrics", which is the foundation of the project, is an unreliable and untested technology and public funds are being channeled to private enterprises without sufficient validation.

Earlier in 2013, the apex court had also issued an interim order which had said Aadhaar card be not made mandatory for people for availing any government services and nobody should be deprived of any such facilities for want of the card.

The Centre, UIDAI and three oil PSUs - IOCL, BPCL and HPCL - had later on moved the apex court seeking modification of its earlier order that Aadhaar card is not mandatory and no person should suffer for want of it in getting the benefits of government schemes.

The petitioners, including Justice K Puttaswamy; former high court judge and Major General SG Vombatkere, who retired as Additional Director General, Discipline and Vigilance in Army HQ; also sought to restrain the Centre, Planning Commission and the UIDAI from issuing Aadhaar cards by way of an executive order of January 28, 2009.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan had in the beginning of the arguments by saying that "there is no statute to back the project" and even if there were one, the statute would be violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution as the project enables surveillance of individuals and impinges upon right to human dignity. Maintaining that whenever state seeks to impinge upon fundamental rights, its action must be backed by statute and not mere executive fiat, the senior advocate said, "Here, the action under the impugned project of collecting personal biometric information without statutory backing is ultra vires even where an individual voluntarily agrees to part with biometric information."

He contended that the project would not stand the test of Constitution as there is no statutory guidance on who and how the biometric information has to be collected. The advocate said the task has been given to some private entities without sufficient validation. Further, there was no clarity on storage, usage and protection of data, he said, adding "the project is also ultra vires because under the constitutional scheme any action of the state that could potentially impinge on an individual's freedom must be backed by statute."

The petitioners said that the procedure adopted by UIDAI in collecting data was also violative of Article 21 as individuals are not told about crucial aspects such as potential misuse of the information, the absence of any statutory protection, commercial value of the information and that private parties are involved in collecting biometric information without safeguards. The bench, which is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the scheme, had earlier said the stand of state governments needs to be considered while adjudicating the case on Aadhaar card.

Meanwhile, a total of 576.16 million Aadhaar cards had been issued till January 31, with Maharashtra topping the list with 82.99 million beneficiaries, the government informed the Lok Sabha last month. Andhra Pradesh (79.06 million) and Tamil Nadu (44.33 million) were placed in the second and third spots, Minister of State for Planning Rajeev Shukla said in a written statement. They were followed by Madhya Pradesh (42.44 million), Karnataka (41.76 million), Rajasthan (38.33 million), West Bengal (34.92 million), Kerala (30.44 million), Gujarat (26.43 million) and Jharkhand (25.82 million).

(With additional information from PTI and IANS)

5502 - SC to focus on 'right to privacy' issue in Niira Radia tapes - TNN

SC to focus on 'right to privacy' issue in Niira Radia tapes

Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN | Apr 30, 2014, 03.16 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would first conclude hearing on the right to privacy issue arising out of the Niira Radia tapes and explore possible criminality indicated in the intercepted telephone conversations later. 

The SC had ordered a CBI probe six months ago into possible illegalities indicated in former corporate lobbyist Radia's tapped conversations with politicians, industrialists and journalists. The October 17 order by a bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi (since retired) had the potential of the probe agency looking at some high-value deals linked to big corporate houses headed by Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani and the Tatas. 

On Tuesday, a bench of Justices H L Dattu, J S Khehar and R K Agrawal said the right to privacy issue raised by Ratan Tata, erstwhile chairman of Tata group, was more important and it would like to conclude hearing on the petition. It framed three issues on right to privacy and posted it for hearing in August. 

The three issues are: "citizen's right to privacy vis-a-vis government, right to privacy vis-a-vis media and right to know information". "Other issues regarding criminality and illegality in various contracts which have come out in recorded conversations of one person with others will be taken up for hearing after completion of hearing on the three issues framed above," the bench said. 

Tata had petitioned the apex court in 2010 in the wake of excerpts of Radia's intercepted conversations appearing in sections of the media and had sought protection of his right to privacy. 

In its October 17 order, the court had described eight deals involving corporate biggies and others as "prima facie indicative of deep rooted malaise in the system of which advantage has been taken by private enterprises in collaboration/connivance with government officers and others". 

The deals were among 17 issues identified by a special team set up by the apex court in February last year to scan tapes for possible instances of criminality. These are, of course, not proven instances of collusion or corruption. It is that the court had prima-facie found sufficient reason for a more detailed probe into these deals. These deals are: 

* Supply of low-floor buses by Tata Motors to Tamil Nadu government under the Centre's JNNURM scheme 

* Appointment of Pradip Baijal, ex-chairman of Trai, as chairman of Pipeline Advisory Committee 

* Allotment of coal blocks to Anil Ambani group's Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project 

* Allotment of iron ore mines at Ankua, Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, to Tata Steel 

* Favours shown by V K Sibal, then director general of hydrocarbons to RIL and quid pro quo received 

* Fudging of subscribers base/record by Reliance Communications, an ADAG company, and submission of the same to Bombay Stock Exchange and Trai to save money 

* Working of touts and middlemen and kickbacks in the aviation sector 

* Market manipulation and hammering of stocks of Unitech. 

"The conversations between Ms Niira Radia and her associates with various persons suggest that unscrupulous elements have used corrupt means to secure favours from government officers, who appear to have acted for extraneous considerations," the court had said and set a 60-day deadline for CBI to look into the controversial deals.

5501 - Government appoints RS Sharma new DEITY Secretary - Economic Times

Government appoints RS Sharma new DEITY Secretary

By PTI | 29 Apr, 2014, 08.17PM IST

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NEW DELHI: The government has appointed Ram Sevak Sharma, the Jharkhand cadre IAS officer, as secretary of Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY). 

"The Appointments Committee of the cabinet has approved the appointment of Ram Sewak Sharma, IAS (JH 78), at present in the cadre, as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology," an official order said. 

Sharma will succeed J Satyanarayana who will retire on April 30. 

Sharma held the position of director general and mission director of the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) between August 2009 and March 2013. He played instrumental role in developing Aadhar card concept with former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani.

NEW DELHI: The government has appointed Ram Sevak Sharma, the Jharkhand cadre IAS officer, as secretary of Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY). 

"The Appointments Committee of the cabinet has approved the appointment of Ram Sewak Sharma, IAS (JH 78), at present in the cadre, as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology," an official order said. 

Sharma will succeed J Satyanarayana who will retire on April 30. 

Sharma held the position of director general and mission director of the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) between August 2009 and March 2013. He played instrumental role in developing Aadhar card concept with former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani.

5500 - To help all in Haryana get Aadhar card, govt launches introducers, verifiers - Indian Express

To help all in Haryana get Aadhar card, govt launches introducers, verifiers

Written by Varinder Bhatia | Chandigarh | April 14, 2014 12:32 

SUMMARY

In order to ensure maximum enrolment of people for Aadhar cards,the Haryana government has introduced a policy of “introducers and verifiers” in the state.

In order to ensure maximum enrolment of people for Aadhar cards, the Haryana government has introduced a policy of “introducers and verifiers” in the state. The purpose for launching the concept is to get even those people enrolled for Aadhar who do not have any valid proof of identity (PoI) or proof of address (PoA). The state government has issued orders to this effect last week on May 16.

According to the orders,introducers will help such residents enrol in the system who do not have any PoI or PoA. Verifiers will verify the documents (PoI,PoA,date of birth) submitted by the citizens at the time of enrolment,in support of their claim for Aadhar card.

The state registrar has notified nambardars and sarpanchs as introducers,and patwaris and gram sachivs as verifiers for rural areas and municipal councillors as introducers and central and state government school teachers,class C and above grade employees as verifiers for the urban areas.

The government has also asked persons wishing to be engaged as introducers or verifiers to apply to the concerned area Deputy Commissioners. “After scrutiny of applications,the DC will forward the names to state registrar who will take necessary steps to notify each person by name”.

So far,about 37 per cent of the total population of Haryana has been enrolled for Aadhar by the Unique Identification Authority of India.

In order to expedite the enrolment work,the state government has selected four agencies. These agencies will start enrolments in camp mode from June 1 in 17 districts of Haryana. The DCs of 17 districts have been asked to provide enrolment agencies adequate space at e-disha centres or any other suitable place with easy public access for setting up permanent enrolment centres.

“The government aims at maximum enrolment,for which we will soon be launching a media campaign on Aadhar card. We hope to enrol each and every resident of the state for Aadhar card by the end of this financial year”,said Krishna Mohan,Additional Chief Secretary and Financial Commissioner (Revenue and Disaster Management-cum-Registrar UID).

5499 - Modi criticises Aadhaar, yet implements it in Gujarat - Hindustan Times

Modi criticises Aadhaar, yet implements it in Gujarat

Saikat Datta and Mahesh Langa, Hindustan Times  New Delhi/Gandhinagar, April 19, 2014

Official documents show that not only did the Gujarat government go beyond the Aadhaar requirements, they also threatened to take "penal action" if the data was not given. The chief minister was also appointed as chairman of the committee to oversee implementation of the Aadhaar project in Gujarat.

These findings were made available to HT by Venkatesh Nayak, an RTI activist and programme coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Nayak told HT that while there are several problems with the Aadhaar project, Modi's criticism is at variance from what his government did. “I checked how much and how often the state government under Mr Modi had opposed the rollout of Aadhaar in Gujarat.”

BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, “Aadhaar was being pushed by the Union government through an executive order and as CM of Gujarat, it was expected of Mr Modi to get it implemented in the state. But that does not mean that he will not question it and point out what is wrong in the scheme. If he did not get it done in Gujarat, he would then have been blamed for delaying it.??”

(With inputs from Moushumi Dasgupta)

5498 - Hacking Your DNA - News Week

Hacking Your DNA

By David Ewing Duncan / March 12, 2014 12:58 PM EDT

The next Edward Snowden may be a geneticist on a personal mission to protect the public from new violations of privacyBSIP SA/Alamy

Keeping track of what we reveal about ourselves each day—through email and text messages, Amazon purchases and Facebook "likes"—is hard enough.

Imagine a future when Big Data has access not only to your shopping habits, but also to your DNA and other deeply personal data collected about our bodies and behavior—and about the inner workings of our proteins and cells. What will the government and others do with that data? And will we be unaware of how it's being used—or abused—until a future Edward Snowden emerges to tell us?

Consider this scenario: A few years from now the National Security Agency hires a young analyst trained in cyber-genetics. She is assigned to comb through millions of DNA profiles in search of markers that might identify terrorists and spies and other persons of interest. It's simple enough, since almost every American and billions of other people have deposited their complete genomes—every A, C, T and G in their cells—into one of the huge new digital health networks, the new Googles and Verizons of medical data.

Sequencing a person's entire DNA profile will be as cheap as getting a car wash. High-end automobiles and hotels are likely to have installed photonic (light) sensors—devices that quickly read small segments of DNA in a customer's skin cells to confirm their identity—to unlock doors. Banks may offer DNA-secure accounts that can only be accessed by a person with the correct genetic code.

People in this future world will be accustomed to genetics guiding treatments and saving lives, even as they remain uneasy about who exactly has access—Employers? Insurers? The government? Their spouse or lover?

With her top-secret clearance, the NSA's new analyst discovers that the agency has accessed the genetic records of not only suspected terrorists, but also heads of state and leaders in industry, academia, the arts and the news media. Troubled by what she has learned, the analyst announces that she's taking a vacation, and flies to a neutral country carrying top-secret cyber-genetic documents stored on an encrypted nanochip. Like Edward Snowden, she gives her data to a reporter, with the hope of rectifying the injustices she has witnessed.

Illustration by Thomas Porostocky

For better or worse, we're not there yet. In 2014, neither the government nor the public sector are anywhere near having a World Wide Web for genetic and other personal molecular data, or a global wireless network that can access anyone's genetic data from anywhere. If this were the Internet, the technology would be in about 1985—at the very beginning.

Physicians, however, are already using genomics to predict and diagnose diseases such as breast cancer and macular degeneration. Thousands of parents use prenatal genetic tests to check if their embryo or fetus carries genes for devastating diseases such as Tay-Sachs or Fragile X syndrome. Researchers have discovered genetic markers that can identify mutations in cancerous tumors that allow doctors to target specific chemotherapy drugs to match a patient's mutations in their own DNA—leading, in some cases, to astonishingly high rates of remission.

In the past two decades, the drug industry and government agencies like the National Institutes of Health have plowed hundreds of billions of dollars into turning genetics from a research project into something real. AT&T, Verizon, IBM and other IT giants are developing digital health networks and products, while thousands of start-ups are in a mini-frenzy to create new digital health networks and apps.

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Some companies, including Google-backed 23andme, have begun to provide customers with access to their own genetic data. (23andme actually stopped providing customers with genetic health data after being warned by the FDA that they need approval for some of these tests—the company says that they are working to fix this). Labs and companies are also in the very early stages of developing devices that read short DNA sequences using light waves, or a simple pinprick of blood.

In January, San Diego-based Illumina, a gene-sequencing company, announced that it can now sequence an entire genome for only $1,000. This may sound pricey, but just a decade ago a single human genome cost hundreds of millions of dollars to sequence. The price is likely to get even less expensive in future years.

This year, the number of people having their genomes sequenced could top 50,000, and that number should increase exponentially over the next few years as governments and health-care systems announce projects to sequence hundreds of thousands of people. Last year the U.K. announced plans to sequence 100,000 citizens by 2017. In the U.S., Kaiser Permanente has teamed up with the University of California at San Francisco to sequence 100,000 patients.

Eventually the mountains of data generated by our DNA and digital health records will be linked to Facebook and Twitter pages (or the future equivalent), and to those pink suede shoes you just bought and shared on the latest incarnation of Instagram. We may not like it, but the reality is that we give up this type of information to these companies every day. And if people want to keep getting the services they provide, they're going to keep trading data for it.

The result in a few years will be staggeringly complex statistical models designed to predict your behavior and to identify personality types, including those prone to violence or terrorism. Congress has passed a law barring health insurers and employers from using DNA to discriminate. Beyond this, however, we have few protections.

Genetic predictions will not be perfect or deterministic. It turns out that DNA is only part of the equation that makes you who you are or will be. Using genetic profiling for identifying terrorists or other personality types will also be imprecise and fraught with errors. Yet the more data amassed about individuals over time, the more accurate the modeling that creates the predictions.

For instance, scientists in a 2008 study associated a variant of the MAOA gene—the so-called "warrior gene"—to a predilection for violent behavior in some people. The statistical strength of this correlation is weak, and even if you have that genetic marker, you may in fact be a full-on pacifist. But let's say that one afternoon you as a carrier of this gene variant "liked" an essay by a former Palestinian commando-turned-diplomat. An hour later you got curious about Al-Qaeda and did a quick Google search. What if some search algorithm at the NSA then connected your social media data to your DNA? The next thing you know, the Transportation Security Administration is stopping you from boarding your flight home for the holidays.

This is just one hypothetical example. As we rush into an era of bigger and better data being crunched by legions of government and public sector employees, we may have to get used to our health information being hacked and interpreted incorrectly or in ways that might work against us. Of course, it would be better to have an open debate and transparent policies about this type of data now.

Failing that, we may wake up one morning to read that the NSA once again has been spying on us—only this time, it won't be about who we called or texted, but the secrets buried deep inside our cells that tell us a great deal about who we are and who we might be in the future.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article contained a quote mistakenly attributed to Eric Topol. It has been removed.

5497 - Biometric Surveillance Means Someone Is Always Watching - New Week

Biometric Surveillance Means Someone Is Always Watching

By Kyle Chayka / April 17, 2014 6:06 AM EDT

In the age of biometric surveillance, there is no place to hide  Priest + Grace

Filed Under: Surveillance

Incrimination by selfie can happen.

  

From 2008 to 2010, as Edward Snowden has revealed, the National Security Agency (NSA) collaborated with the British Government Communications Headquarters to intercept the webcam footage of over 1.8 million Yahoo users.

The agencies were analyzing images they downloaded from webcams and scanning them for known terrorists who might be using the service to communicate, matching faces from the footage to suspects with the help of a new technology called face recognition.

The outcome was pure Kafka, with innocent people being caught in the surveillance dragnet. In fact, in attempting to find faces, the Pentagon's Optic Nerve program recorded webcam sex by its unknowing targets—up to 11 percent of the material the program collected was "undesirable nudity" that employees were warned not to access, according to documents. And that's just the beginning of what face recognition technology might mean for us in the digital era.

Over the past decade, face recognition has become a fast-growing commercial industry, moving from its governmental origins—programs like Optic Nerve—into everyday life. The technology is being pitched as an effective tool for securely confirming identities, with the financial backing of a new Washington lobbying firm, the Secure Identity & Biometrics Association (SIBA).

To some, face recognition sounds benign, even convenient. Walk up to the international checkpoint in a German airport, gaze up at a camera, and walk into the country without ever needing to pull out a passport-your image is on file, the camera knows who you are. Wander into a retail store and be greeted with personalized product suggestions—the store's network has a record of what you bought last time. Facebook already uses face recognition to recommend which friends to tag in your photos.

But the technology has a dark side. The U.S. government is in the process of building the world's largest cache of face recognition data, with the goal of identifying every person in the country. The creation of such a database would mean that anyone could be tracked wherever his or her face appears, whether it's on a city street or in a mall. Today's laws don't protect Americans from having their webcams scanned for facial data.

Not That Perfect

Security CCTV. Peter Marlow/Magnum

Face recognition systems have two components: an algorithm and a database. The algorithm is a computer program that takes an image of a face and deconstructs it into a series of landmarks and proportional patterns-the distance between eye centers, for example. This process of turning unique biological characteristics into quantifiable data is known as biometrics.

Together, the facial data points create a "face-print" that, like a fingerprint, is unique to each individual. Some faces are described as open books; at a glance, a person can be "read." Face recognition technology makes that metaphor literal. "We can extrapolate enough data from the eye and nose region, from ear to ear, to build a demographic profile," including an individual's age range, gender and ethnicity, says Kevin Haskins, a business development manager at the face recognition company Cognitec.

Face-prints are collected into databases, and a computer program compares a new image or piece of footage with the database for matches. Cognitec boasts a match accuracy rate of 98.75 percent, an increase of over 20 percent over the past decade. Facebook recently achieved 97.25 percent accuracy after acquiring biometrics company Face.com in 2012.

So far, the technology has its limits. "The naive layman thinks face recognition is out there and can catch you anytime, anywhere, and your identity is not anonymous anymore," says Paul Schuepp, the co-founder of Animetrics, a decade-old face recognition company based in New Hampshire. "We're not that perfect yet."

The lighting and angle of faces images must be strictly controlled to create a usable face-print.Enrollment is the slightly Orwellian industry term for making a print and entering an individual into a face recognition database. "Good enrollment means getting a really good photograph of the frontal face, looking straight on, seeing both eyes and both ears," Schuepp explains.

The technology's presence is subtle, and as it gets integrated into devices we already use, it will be easy to overlook. The most dystopian example might beNameTag, a startup that launched in February promising to embed face recognition in wearable computers like Google Glass. The software would allow you to look across a crowded bar and identify the anonymous cutie you are scoping out. The controversial company also brags that its product can identify sex offenders on sight.How face recognition is already being used hints at just how pervasive it could become. It's being used on military bases to control who has access to restricted areas. In Iraq and Afghanistan, it was used to check images of detainees in the field against Al-Qaeda wanted lists. The Seattle police department is already applying the technology to identify suspects on video footage.

As the scale of face recognition grows, there's a chance it could take its place in the technological landscape as seamlessly as the iPhone. But to allow that to happen would mean ignoring the increasing danger that it will be misused.

Inescapable Security Net

Monitors show imagery from security cameras seen at the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative on April 23, 2013 in New York, NY. At the counter-terrorism center, police and private security personnel monitor more than 4,000 surveillance cameras and license plate readers mounted around the Financial District and surrounding parts of Lower Manhattan. credit: John Moore/Getty

By licensing their technology to everyone from military defense contractors to Internet start-ups, companies like Cognitec and Animetrics are churning a global biometrics industry that will grow to $20 billion by 2020, according to Janice Kephart, the founder of SIBA. With funding from a coalition of face recognition businesses, SIBA launched in February 2014 to "educate folks about the reality of biometrics, bridging the gap between Washington and the industry," says Kephart, who previously worked as a counsel to the 9/11 Commission. "The Department of Homeland Security hasn't done anything on this for 16 years. America is falling way behind the rest of the world."

Kephart believes biometric technology could have prevented the 9/11 attacks (which she says "caused a surge" in the biometrics industry) and Edward Snowden's NSA leaks. She emphasizes the technology's protective capabilities rather than its potential for surveillance. "Consumers will begin to see that biometrics delivers privacy and security at the same time," she says.

It's this pairing of seeming opposites that makes face recognition so difficult to grapple with. By identifying individuals, it can prevent people from being where they shouldn't be. Yet the profusion of biometrics creates an inescapable security net with little privacy and the potential for serious mistakes with dire consequences. An error in the face recognition system could cause the ultimate in identity theft, with a Miley Cyrus look-alike dining on Miley's dime or a hacker giving your digital passport (and citizenship) to a stranger.

Some in government express concern over the potential for abuse. U.S. Senator Al Franken, D-Minn., has become a leading figure in the debate, noting in 2013 that face recognition "has profound implications for privacy"—namely, that there won't be any. In a February 2014 letter to NameTag, he urged the company to delay its product "until best practices for facial recognition technology are established."

Franken's suggestion points out the biggest problem with face recognition's future. Legal boundaries for the technology have not been set; we know that public face recognition data is being collected, but we don't know how it is being accessed or used.

Contrary to Kephart's assertions, the federal government has been quite busy with biometrics. This summer, the FBI is focusing on face recognition with the fourth step of its Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, a $1.2 billion initiative launched in 2008 to build the world's largest biometric database. By 2013, the database held 73 million fingerprints, 5.7 million palm prints, 8.1 million mug shots and 8,500 iris scans. Interfaces to access the system are being provided free of charge to local law enforcement authorities.

Jennifer Lynch, staff attorney for the privacy-focused Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), notes there were at least 14 million photographs in the NGI face recognition database as of 2012. What's more, the NGI database makes no distinction between criminal biometrics and those collected for civil service jobs. "All of a sudden, your image that you uploaded for a civil purpose to get a job is searched every time there's a criminal query," Lynch says. "You could find yourself having to defend your innocence."

Through a federal lawsuit, EFF obtained redacted NGI documents that it will soon publish. documents show that by 2015, the FBI estimates that NGI will include 46 million criminal face images and 4.3 million civil face images. The vendor building the face recognition system, MorphoTrust, was asked to design it to receive up to 55,000 direct photo enrollments per day and 2,300 per hour, as well as process 34,000 photo retrievals per day and 1,400 per hour. The statistics hint at the sheer scale of the face recognition infrastructure under construction-in one year, over 20 million Americans could be put into the system.

Documents also show that Michigan, Florida, Kansas, South Carolina, South Dakota, Hawaii and Maryland likely have already incorporated their criminal mug-shot databases into the system and that 11 more states are in discussions to work with NGI, including New York.

"Americans cannot easily take precautions against the covert, remote and mass capture of their images," Lynch said in the EFF's lawsuit statement. In a world where any camera could be used to grab a face-print, it's impossible to know where your identity will end up. To assert control, we must determine if we have a right to our own faces.

Elevator sign with surveillance monitor. JPM/Corbis

Warrantless Collection

Some legal precedents suggest that we do have a modicum of control over personal biometric data. The 1969 Supreme Court case Davis v. Mississippi determined that using fingerprints (a form of biometrics) obtained without a warrant or probable cause for arrest cannot be used in court. Likewise, "the warrantless collection and use of face-prints by law enforcement is unlikely to overcome the hurdle of the Fourth Amendment," Kirill Levashov writes in The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review. (The collection of biometrics from individuals who have been legally arrested is protected under cases like 2013's Maryland v. King.)

Yet despite cases like Davis v. Mississippi, noncriminal biometric information is already being included in criminal investigations, according to Lynch. "Law enforcement agencies are already using Department of Motor Vehicles databases," she says. "We know that law enforcement agencies including the FBI are searching those databases for criminal purposes"-meaning that any time citizens have their photo taken in a governmental capacity, whether it's a background check or a driver's license, their faces are liable to be analyzed by NGI.

In the private sector, efforts are being made to ensure face recognition isn't abused, but standards are similarly vague. A 2012 Federal Trade Commission report recommends that companies should obtain "affirmative express consent before collecting or using biometric data from facial images." Facebook collects face-prints by default, but users can opt out of having their face-prints collected.

Technology entrepreneurs argue that passing strict laws before face recognition technology matures will hamper its growth. "What I'm worried about is policies being made inappropriately before their time," Animetrics's Schuepp says. "I don't think it's face recognition we want to pick on." He suggests that the technology itself is not the problem; rather, it's how the biometrics data are controlled.

Yet precedents for biometric surveillance must be set early in order to control its application. "I would like to see regulation of this before it goes too far," Lynch says. "There should be laws to prevent misuse of biometric data by the government and by private companies. We should decide whether we want to be able to track people through society or not."

Impossible to Be Anonymous

What would a world look like with comprehensive biometric surveillance? "If cameras connected to databases can do face recognition, it will become impossible to be anonymous in society," Lynch says. That means every person in the U.S. would be passively tracked at all times. In the future, the government could know when you use your computer, which buildings you enter on a daily basis, where you shop and where you drive. It's the ultimate fulfillment of Big Brother paranoia.

But anonymity isn't going quietly. Over the past several years, mass protests have disrupted governments in countries across the globe, including Egypt, Syria and Ukraine. "It's important to go out in society and be anonymous," Lynch says. But face recognition could make that impossible. A protester in a crowd could be identified and fired from a job the next day, never knowing why. A mistaken face-print algorithm could mark the wrong people as criminals and force them to escape the specter of their own image.

If biometric surveillance is allowed to proliferate unchecked, the only option left is to protect yourself from it. Artist Zach Blas has made a series of bulbous masks, aptly named the "Facial Weaponization Suite," that prepare us for just such a world. The neon-colored masks both disguise the wearer and make the rest of us more aware of how our faces are being politicized.

"These technologies are being developed by police and the military to criminalize large chunks of the population," Blas says of biometrics. If cameras can tell a person's identity, background and whereabouts, what's to stop the algorithms from making the same mistakes as governmental authorities, giving racist or sexist biases a machine-driven excuse? "Visibility," he says, "is a kind of trap."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misnamed the state in which Al Franken is a senator. 

5496 - No party's got a clear stand, Aadhaar's fate hangs in balance - Governance Now

No party's got a clear stand, Aadhaar's fate hangs in balance

A non-UPA government for sure will review the multi-crore UID programme, but none of the parties have yet talked about scrapping it

PRATAP VIKRAM SINGH | NEW DELHI | APRIL 13 2014

Since inception, Aadhaar’s foundation has been shaky. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been functioning on an executive fiat, without parliamentary ratification. When the government first came up with a bill on the UID programme, it was rejected by the parliamentary standing committee, which questioned the purpose of the programme.

Aadhaar’s acceptability as proof of residence and its issuance to the illegal immigrants too has courted controversy. The opposition and the ministry of home affairs have repeatedly flagged the issue. Recently, the supreme court (SC) instructed the government to withdraw all orders mandating Aadhaar number for service delivery. In September last year too the apex court had ruled that no one should be denied a service for want of Aadhaar.

While the Congress hasn’t changed its position on Aadhaar and wishes to continue with Aadhaar-linked benefits transfer, the BJP hasn’t mentioned it even once in its 52-page manifesto. On April 8, Narendra Modi, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, in an election rally near Bangalore was quoted as saying, “I asked several questions on the Aadhaar project. I asked them questions relating to illegal migrants and national security. They (the government) did not have any answer.”

Rajendra Pratap Gupta, member of BJP’s core committee on manifesto, told Governance Now: “If we come to power we will review this in totality. There is scepticism around the whole project and even the SC has ruled against mandating it.” He called Aadhaar one of the ‘biggest scams’ of the UPA. “We have found people owning multiple Aadhaar cards. It (Aadhaar) is not a very secure system,” he added.    

On the other hand, Aam Aadmi Party doesn’t oppose the idea of Aadhaar, though it is critical of its linkage to delivering food and other subsidies. Atishi Marlena, the party’s manifesto committee chief, said, “In principle, we don’t oppose the Aadhaar programme. If it’s about providing an identification proof to the poor who don’t have other documents, we certainly welcome it. But Aadhaar’s linkage with benefits-transfer needs to be questioned. Who gets what and who doesn’t should be determined by gram sabhas and mohalla sabhas. It should be done via people participation.”

The CPI(M), in its manifesto, called for halting the project unless it gets parliamentary approval. It also underlined the need for a privacy and data protection law prior to the rollout of the UID programme. “The moment Aadhaar is linked with service delivery, the scope for exclusion widens. You need to have universal coverage of Aadhaar and banking before you roll out the benefits transfer programme,” CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member Tapan Sen said.

In its manifesto, the party has talked about ‘constituting an independent high-level expert panel for an appraisal of the technology of biometrics used in the project’.

Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society said, “The centralised online authentication automatically raises issues of privacy infringement. The authentication, in a decentralised fashion, with help of smart cards, is less intrusive, as the logs are stored in a local fashion and not centralised as in the case of Aadhaar. It will be a welcome move if the next government selects resident ID  (smart) card, issued by the home ministry, as proof for identification and service delivery.”

5495 - How biometric IDs can stir 'the Pot' and lead to civil war? -Part XXXV by Gopal Krishna - Money Life

How biometric IDs can stir 'the Pot' and lead to civil war? -Part XXXV

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GOPAL KRISHNA | 29/04/2014 11:21 AM |   

The democratic mandate, which the non-Congress parties are likely to get, is against a regime that surrendered the interests of Indians on the dictates of imperial powers the way many African countries and Asian countries like UAE and Pakistan have done

Like Ivory Coast, a civil war can happen in India too because of biometric and electronic identification. All the international agencies, which are involved in promotion of unique identification (UID) through Planning Commission, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Election Commission of India (EC), residential addresses and land titles in India were involved there as well. Likes of LK Advani, P Chidambram, Nandan Nilekani, Sam Pitroda and C Chandramouli have been advocating national identity cards as if “everyday forms of identity surveillance” is natural and rational.

Read Full Article at Money Life

5494 - How Aadhaar, India Post can transform India's finance - Money Control

pr 28, 2014, 04.33 PM IST | Source: CNBC-TV18 

How Aadhaar, India Post can transform India's finance 

In an episode, Raghav Bahl discussed the idea of setting up a new payments bank which could be a joint venture between Aadhar and India Post.

Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/how-aadhaar-india-post-can-transform-indias-finance_1072296.html?utm_source=ref_article

In a four-part broadcast series called 'Change India', Network18 founder Raghav Bahl looked at ideas that appear simple but could be transformational in addressing problems that have dogged India for decades. In an episode, he discussed the idea of setting up a new payments bank which could be a joint venture between Aadhaar and India Post. Aadhaar started off as a simple idea with boundless potential. In 2009, the UPA government rolled out the Aadhaar scheme that was capable of not only providing an identity to 1.2 billion Indians but also link their unique identity number to a bank account. However, in a country where commercial banks are inaccessible to 60 percent of its citizens even today, this potential remains untapped. And reaching the remotest corners of India through nearly 2 lakh post offices, India Post is much more than a national postal service, a beacon of hope and good news. Change India's big idea was to enable India Post to function as a payments bank by linking it to the Aadhaar card instantly ensuring that 60 crore Indians have access to basic banking services. To discuss the idea, Bahl spoke with journalist and author Shankar Ayar, Bindu Ananth, president of the IFMR Trust, an organization committed to financial inclusion, and Dhiraj Nayyar, CEO of Network18's Think India Foundation. Q: Let us begin with the current controversies around Aadhaar. There is a lot of negativity around Aadhaar. There are calls to junk it essentially on grounds of privacy infringements and the fact that it does not have legislative backing. What is your sense should this idea be junked or is it reformable and then can we put to good use? Ayar: To start with the opposition is more in terms of whose idea it is and how it has been implemented. This was the biggest idea of the UPA and they failed it so miserably, it is unbelievable. The Americans have a phrase that the animals eat their young. The UPA has done effectively that. The problem with Aadhaar is that the UPA shied away and sort of neglected giving it a legislative statutory backup. After all you are collecting data about people and this concerns privacy issues. It also concerns the issue of integrity as to where it is being hosted. Eventually it will be hosted with the National Population Register but governments can't take years to fix what is a necessary statutory issue. The objection is not so much to the idea but the identity of Aadhaar. Bahl: If you can tell us how to fix these two problems? Is it as simple as saying that we will get the law passed by the new government and then we are fine to go or something else needs to be done to fix Aadhaar? Ananth: From a financial inclusion perspective Aadhaar is important because it solves two important problems. One is the whole KYC issue. How do you go about establishing KYC for million of individuals who don’t yet have a bank account and second is authentication to say what is the secure way to establish for every transaction the identity of the customer. For years we have done this without Aadhaar, without biometrics. So, I am sure there is a version of this that can be done. However, it would be a shame to lose the momentum of Aadhar because this can truly accelerate the pace at which financial inclusion happens. So, political issues aside, technically it is very important for financial inclusion. Bhal: The consensus seems to be it is too good a thing to just junk which is what the debate is around. I quickly want to understand from you, will legislation solve it or is there something in the design and the architecture of the scheme that needs to be worked on as well? Nayyar: There are always small technical flaws in the scheme of this scale. You are trying to give unique ID numbers based on biometrics to a billion people. That itself is a massive exercise and there has been turf war between the National Population Register and Aadhaar. So, there are technical issues. I am sure some machines don’t work well, some don’t pick up finger prints, those are issues which are solvable. However the big thing is the legislation. To get legislation done you need to persuade people. Now the Congress for some reason despite it being a great idea of theirs and probably should have been the flagship of UPA-II failed to get the backing for it. I hope whichever government takes office doesn’t abandon it and builds the necessary consensus to pass the legislation because once it has a legal backing, once privacy issues are sorted, are backed by legal framework then resistance will reduce.   Bahl: This idea that we are propagating of a joint venture between Aadhaar and Indian Post even though the thought is that if you were to do this, if you were to put this two things together then you would be expanding India's savings base dramatically because you would get many more people into the banking system who would then place their deposits with you. Are you in sync? Any estimate of where this could go? Ananth: I have a slightly different take on the concept. The payments bank really implies two things. One that, as an institution you can take deposits and do payments but all your liabilities will be invested in government securities, in other words no lending. What I am describing now is exactly what the Indian postal system is today. We don’t have formal nomenclature called payments bank but it perhaps comes closest to being a payments bank. So, we don’t need a lot of organizational and institutional changes. To my mind two things need to change to make the post office even more powerful in the realm of payments. One is that the post office at the Panchayat level typically tends to be operated by a franchise. We need to bring all of these nodes into the common network. Today a lot of the last man post offices still remain out of the network. Second thing is interoperability with the banking system. So, let India Post continue to do the good work that it is doing but is there a way I can walk into my neighbourhood post office and transact not just with the post office but with the entire banking sector. With those minor tweaks we actually get a lot of power in the existing system. 

Watch the video for the full interview. 

Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/how-aadhaar-india-post-can-transform-indias-finance_1072296.html?utm_source=ref_article

5493 - The curious case of the voter ID card: Good for everything but voting - First Post

The curious case of the voter ID card: Good for everything but voting Apr 25, 2014 

Take a voter identity card. 

It has your photograph, your father’s or mother’s or husband’s name, your full address, date of birth with age at the time the card was issued, and the Assembly constituency of which you are a voter. The concerned returning officer’s signature and seal is affixed. What it lacks is your thumb impression and retinal image that the Aadhaar card required. There is a tamper-proof hologram as well. And yet, it is of no use to vote if your name is not on the voter rolls. That is, it has everything, including, a statement, ‘This card may be used as an Identity Card under different Government Schemes”. 

This should irk voters, not insignificant in number, who were turned away in Amravati, Pune and Mumbai from the polling booths during the Lok Sabha elections, perhaps in other places across the country. It raises a fundamental question: if you are not a voter, you wouldn’t have got the ID. If you had the ID, why are you not on the voter’s list? 

Reuters 

To a voter wanting to discharge his duty, this becomes a crisis. 

If an MP, Ram Jethmalani, who had used the same voter details to get elected in 2010 to the Rajya Sabha, could see him deleted from the list, imagine the plight of the rest. The number of such deletions is so large that this cannot be dismissed as a mere error that occured while the list was being updated. Errors cannot be on this scale. 

The precise number of such deleted voters is anybody’s guess but a figure of two lakhs for Mumbai and probably twice that in Pune are being bandied about in the public domain. Which means that even in an electorally lethargic city, if these people had voted, the voting percentages could have been better than the improved numbers. 

Questions arise because the voter list’s sanctity is critical to a fair election. TS Krishnamurthy, former CEC has in fact found this enough of an issue to 'review' and seek a better way to register voters. Speaking on a call-in programme on CNN-IBN, he admitted that there was room for improvement. Yes, keeping a proper electoral list is the responsibility of both the EC and the voter. He wondered why the process of issuing a show cause notice before deletion was not followed. When the EC itself was campaigning to increase voter participation, this poor status of the list was a surprise. 

In a country where in a first past the poll system candidates have won or lost by very narrow margins, deletions are a cause for grievance. 

In the 2004 Assembly polls in Karnataka, B Rachiah lost to R Dhruvanarayan by one vote. In 2008, CP Joshi, aspiring to be a CM, also lost by a single vote in Rajasthan. 

It is ironic that the ‘Voter’s ID’ as we know it, is actually an ‘Elector Photo Identity Card, which has been abbreviated by the Central Election Commission itself as EPIC. Scaled down voter’s rolls for whatever reason is unacceptable. After all, adult franchise is on the basis of one-man, one-vote. The perception is that one vote levels the voter and the candidate in a democracy. 

Of the several reforms due, the EC needs to focus on this first. It can’t be that despite having a voter’s card, one cannot vote. The IDs were issued during TN Seshan’s time to avoid impersonation which is a grave electoral offence. Technically the ID is a secondary condition, but in the popular mind it is a single condition since it is issued only to eligible and registered voters. 

I have voted since 1970 despite having changed residences and cities as often as, in a manner of speaking, changing into a clean shirt. However, I have never been stopped from voting for not having an EPIC. In the last two elections, with only a PAN card as an identifier of my voter credentials, I have voted although the system persisted in listing me in a building where I does not live. My wife has been listed in yet another apartment block. 

The fact is neither of us has been issued such a card, which is not for want of applying. After three previous votes cast, I found my photograph on the list yesterday, but the EPIC remains elusive despite applying twice to sort it out. When the card will arrive is no longer relevant, because it is not the EPIC but the PAN Card which helped me establish my credentials. The EC has to devise a way, such as possibly opting for smart cards with details embedded in them. Such cards will have to be renewed periodically, not just before the elections. Possession of such a valid card can mean automatic presence on the list via dynamic updating. This is not impossible. We are after all, a country which supplies techies to the world. 

After each elections, the Election Commission is viewed as being generally successful in conducting a free and fair elections but this remains unarticulated because by now, it is a given. 

Politicians may crib like Azam Khan did and rage like Jairam Ramesh saying it cannot “be a government” because of vigorous implementation of the model code of conduct. The raps on the knuckles are taken in the stride after apologising, like Sharad Pawar did after his ‘vote-twice’ call or Amit Shah after begging forgiveness for his “no-ball”. It can drive a Giriraj Singh into hiding till he seeks bail after poisonous diatribes. People may feel it is not enough but there is consciousness that the process is generally even-handed. But it needs to attend to this flaw of errors in the list because a deletion can amount to disenfranchisement even if unintended. Since the EPICs are not universal even after over two decades of issuance, they may even be done away with because, as of now, they serve no purpose except for other schemes. Save the money and get the act clean, including the lists.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/the-curious-case-of-the-voter-id-card-good-for-everything-but-voting-1497195.html?utm_source=ref_article

5492 - In Bangalore South, it's Aadhaar vs Janivar - TNN

In Bangalore South, it's Aadhaar vs Janivar

Anil Kumar M,TNN | Apr 26, 2014, 01.42 AM IST

BANGALORE: The 55% turnout in the Bangalore South parliamentary constituency on April 17 may be deemed as poor despite the 10% climb over the previous edition, but it has made for intriguing denouement on May 16. 

The camps of the two main contenders in the fray-five-time MP HN Ananth Kumar of the BJP and Nandan Nilekani of the Congress - are both reeling out figures and pointing to trends, previous and current, to claim that their man will have the last laugh. 

BJP leaders who organized Ananth's campaign say they have a cast iron case as the caste combination in the constituency has worked in their candidate's favour. A senior leader who steered Ananth's campaign said the constituency is dominated by Brahmins - who he in a lighter vein referred to as Janivar (the sacred thread they wear) - who have favoured the BJP candidate. 

"Aadhaar (Nandan) can't mess around with Janivar (Ananth)," he quipped. For the record, Nandan is a Brahmin like Ananth and headed the UPA's ambitious Aadhaar biometric-card project. 

The BJP leader also claimed huge Vokkaliga support. According to him, Brahmins and Vokkaligas number slightly over three lakh each in the constituency. "Not only Brahmins and Vokkaligas, all communities in the segment, including Muslims, have voted for us. So Ananth will win by over a lakh votes," former deputy CM R Ashoka, who spearheaded canvassing for Ananth, told TOI. 

Congress leaders, equally confident, though cite assembly segment wise stats to root for Nandan. They concede that the BJP might get a lead of 65,000 in three assembly segments- Bommanahalli (25,000), Basavanagudi (25,000) and Padmanabhanagar (10,000), while the Congress would gain a lead of 85,000 votes in the remaining five assembly segments (of which four are with Congress) and the net effect would give Nandan a victory by at least 20,000 votes. Minister in-charge of Nandan's election, Ramalinga Reddy, maintained that Congress would win by over 50,000 votes as there is increase in voting by 10% this time. 

BJP leaders, who spoke off the record, concede they have not calculated even a single minority vote while Congress leaders said the party has left out Brahmin votes.

5491 - Govt to extend CISF commandos for UIDAI centre's security in B'lore - Business Standard

Govt to extend CISF commandos for UIDAI centre's security in B'lore

Data centre houses 'Aadhaar' data of individuals from various states at this location and hence it was felt essential to secure it

Press Trust of India  |  New Delhi  April 23, 2014 Last Updated at 18:40 IST

The government is planning to bring the highly classified and sensitive data centre of the UIDAI-sponsored 'Aadhar' identity project in Bangalore under an armed security cover of central paramilitary forces.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has tasked the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which guards sensitive vital installations in the government and the private domain, to conduct a security audit of the main building of the centre which is operated by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

The centre is located near the Hebbal area in Bangalore and at present, private security guards man the entry and exit to the building.

The CISF, according to sources, may project an estimated strength of about 100 commandos and security personnel to render 'access control' and anti-sabotage tasks at the sensitive facility.

A report in this regard would be made and submitted to the forces' headquarters here, following which the Home Ministry will take a final call of deploying the security which will be paid by the UIDAI.

The UIDAI data centre houses the 'Aadhaar' data of individuals from various states at this location and hence it was felt essential to secure it by a trained and specialised force like the CISF, the official said.

"The armed protection by the CISF will ensure security to the facility against any act of sabotage or a terror like threat," the official said.

Once the final approvals are made, the force will soon establish its infrastructure at the location which will be provided from the budget of the UIDAI, the official said.

The CISF provides trained and armed security personnel for protecting important installations and it is the premier force rendering this task in the country.

5490 - Flaws in Aadhaar-based DBT come to fore - Deccan herald

Flaws in Aadhaar-based DBT come to fore

Mysore, April 23, 2014, DHNS

LPG distributors, customers discuss problems of the scheme

Several shortcomings pertaining to the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG subsidies (DBT) were highlighted during a review meeting of a high-level committee, held here on Wednesday.

The committee, headed by Sanjay Dhande, former director of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, interacted with LPG distributors, customers and representatives of various banks in the district.

Talking about various problems faced by distributors, Mehul Patel of Amardeep Gas Agency said that a mechanism for ‘subsidy tracking’ was necessary, as LPG distributors did not know to which bank account of a customer the subsidy was being transferred.

Preventing ambiguities

He added that a ‘mapping referral number’ was also essential to ensure that subsidies are transferred to the correct account, so as to prevent any ambiguities.

Distributors also complained about the delay in seeding, ‘as different banks followed a different process of seeding’. They also sought a mechanism from the National Payments Corporation of India which enables to have a history of subsidies transferred to a particular account, either on a website or through text messages.

C R Krishna of Little Gas Agency, described the scheme as “searching for a black cat in a dark room,” as the concerned implementing agencies had failed in issuing appropriate directions regarding the DBT. There must also be a provision for customers to walk in and walk out with subsidies after producing the Aadhaar card, he added.

‘Transparency essential’

Niraj Mittal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum, said: “Transparency in seeding and tracking subsidies is also essential,” he said. He added that the bank employee strike in February hurt DBT, as transfer of subsidies was delayed during the period.
Dhande said that the committee was looking at measures to remove the ‘cobwebs’ in Aadhaar based DBT, in the case the project was revisited or re-launched later.

5489 - Aadhaar: Criminal waste of money

Aadhaar: Criminal waste of money

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

This has reference to 'Aadhaar: A huge waste of public money' (ADC, Apr.21) by Dr. Manish Kumar which says it all eloquently. The 'Aadhaar' project which, in the initial years, put several thousand citizens all over the country to a lot of agonising experience to get this all-important card, will rank as the worst misadsventure of its auhor, Nandan Nilekani, who pushed it though the citizens of India without any rhyme or reason and without adequate infrastructural facilities. When all other valid documents like the ration card, passport, voter identity card and PAN card were already available, there was absolutely no necessity whatsoever for subjecting India's millions to the gruelling experience of standing in long queues out in the open without any toilet or drinking water facilities for hours, often for nothing since only a limited number of forms were supplied every day then. I had to go three times and also had to take my ailing relative to the centre, making her walk up the stairs. And, after all these troubles, the Aadhaar card was not accepted in the banks which were asking for all other documents. This was indeed a monumental blunder by the UPA government that resulted in a colossal waste of public money.
— Dr. V. Subramanyan, Thane

5488 - Has Nilekani followed Pakistan’s NADRA in creating, enforcing Aadhaar? –Part XXXIV - Money Life

Moneylife » Life » UID/Aadhaar » 

Has Nilekani followed Pakistan’s NADRA in creating, enforcing Aadhaar? –Part XXXIV

GOPAL KRISHNA | 22/04/2014 02:41 PM |   

Is it just a coincidence that Tariq Malik of NADRA and Nandan Nilekani received awards at Milan ID World Congress for their similar work? Is Nilekani simply following the footprints of Malik in creating, enforcing biometric-based ID?

Electronics has become a fundamental political problem.
-Dr Ernesto “Che” Guevara in 1962

tujhe zibah karne kee khushi, mujhe marne ka shauk,
(You are happy to kill, I am fond of dying)
meri bhee marzi wahi hai, jo mere saiyaad ki hai
(My desire is the same as that of my hunter)
-Jail Note Book of Shahid-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, 1929

jin ko tha zaban pe naaz (Those proud of their eloquence)
chup hain wo zaban daraaz (Their tongues are completely silent)
chain hai samaaj me (There is tranquility in society)
bemisaal fark hai (This is an unexampled difference)
kal me aur aaj me (Between yesterday and today)
apne kharch par hain qaid (imprisoned at their own expense)
log kaid tere raaj me (people under your rule)
                                                   

-Habib Jalib, a revolutionary poet from Pakistan

Read Full ASrticle at Money Life

5487 - DBT: Panel to visit Mysore tomorrow - Deccan herald

DBT: Panel to visit Mysore tomorrow

Bangalore, April 21, 2014, DHNS

A high-level committee headed by Anil Bhandari, Director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), will visit Mysore on April 23 to examine the pros and cons of the controversial Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme for LPG supply.

The committee is scheduled to hold a discussion with LPG dealers and customers in Mysore, where the scheme was first implemented on a pilot basis in the State.

But the Oil Ministry put the scheme on hold in March, following a Supreme Court order that it should not be made mandatory for subsidy schemes of the government.

Aadhaar-based scheme

The Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for LPG was also implemented in Tumkur, Dharwad and Udupi districts in the State.

Under the scheme, subsidy amount on every LPG refill will be directly credited to the customer’s Aadhaar-linked bank account.

Officials of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Department of Financial Services of the Ministry of Finance and Gas Authority of India Limited will be the committee’s members, besides ONGC director (Videsh).

It is also scheduled to visit Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad on April 22 and 24, respectively, for this purpose, sources said.

5486 - Your identity is guarded by 65 armed men Rohith B R - TNN

Your identity is guarded by 65 armed men

Rohith B R,TNN | Apr 22, 2014, 12.13 AM IST

BANGALORE: The country's valued treasure — the identities of around 61 crore Indians, and more to be added— is set to get security cover from 65 star guards. Personnel from the multi-skilled security agency, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), will guard the Bangalore data centre of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), located near Sahakarnagar in North Bangalore.

UIDAI regional deputy director Ashok Dalwai told Times Of India the ministry of home affairs has given its clearance, and in the first phase, 65 guards will be deployed at the Centre. "Currently, the data centre, which is a vital hub related to the generation of Aadhaar numbers, is being operated from a small setup in Whitefield. From June this year, we'll move to the centre near Hebbal, by when CISF cover will also be deployed there," he added.

On the other hand, the number of CISF personnel guarding Infosys is around 100, deployed on different shifts.

UIDAI officials said maximum security for the data centre is crucial as it houses primary Aadhaar data (both demographic and biometric) for the entire country. "More CISF personnel are expected to join the premises when the technology centre, located next to the data centre, becomes operational," said a UIDAI official.

The data centre, located next to Tatanagar Main Road, off NH-4, near Sahakarnagar in North Bangalore, is located in a building resistant to blasts, floods and earthquakes.

FIREWALLS ARE UP

Asked about UIDAI's preparedness on a probable internal threat from hackers, a senior official said the system is ready to tackle such issues. "The asymmetrical encryption with 2048 bit format, used to secure data, is the best in the world and there's additional protection of software firewalls. The decryption, even at the data centre, is not possible by any individual as there is complete isolation from biometric and demographic data right from the enrollment stage. There are additional data security measures and backup systems, which can't be revealed," he added.

Asked about the future of Aadhaar, in the wake of recent observations by the Supreme Court and the controversy over Aadhaar as an election issue, UIDAI officials said they see no major threat to the project. "If you're looking at a change in government at the Centre, Aadhaar enrollment is also in full swing in states ruled by the BJP, including Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. We'll be getting more security personnel from CISF," he added.

CISF PLAYS KEY ROLE

* Guards Infosys, Electronics City, Kempegowda International Airport, Isro and BHEL in Bangalore

* Provides security to major critical infrastructure and nuclear installations, space establishments, airports, seaports, power plants, sensitive government buildings and heritage monuments across India

* Recent additions to CISF portfolio include Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, disaster management and establishment of a Formed Police Unit of the UN in Caribbean country Hait.

5485 - Private banks go slow on swipe machines, ATMs - TNN

Private banks go slow on swipe machines, ATMs

TNN | Apr 21, 2014, 05.33AM IST

New generation private banks have slowed down addition of new credit card point of sales (POS) terminals and automated teller machines ( ATMs) in the wake of RBI's order that all card-accepting machines - whether an ATM or a POS terminal - should be capable of authenticating transactions based on biometric information using the Aadhaar database.

Banks say that not only do they need to purchase expensive equipment, they would also have to connect machines to networks with 3G speeds. Some banks are waiting to see whether the next government that comes to power after the Lok Sabha elections would review the directive on Aadhaar authentication.

Interestingly, while other banks have slowed down, Axis Bank has turned very aggressive on ATM and POS deployment. It now has the largest ATM network among private banks and second largest network of POS machines. 

5484 - First Aadhaar card owner struggles for a living - Hindustan Times

First Aadhaar card owner struggles for a living

Pravin Nair, Hindustan Times  Tembhli, Nandurbar, April 20, 2014

First Published: 15:32 IST(20/4/2014) | Last Updated: 15:42 IST(20/4/2014)

She got the country's first Aadhaar card. But after around four years, Ranjana Sonawane is disillusioned. "We have no money. No jobs. Just a card," she says. "How will I eke out a living with a card?"

On September 29, 2010, Ranjana and nine other tribal residents of Tembhli village in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra, were given the cards at the launch of the Aadhaar programme by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The objective of providing a unique 12-digit identity number to the citizens was to ensure better delivery of social security schemes.

Asked if she would go to Sonia Gandhi's rally in Nandurbar, Ranjana says, "I would like to meet her, but will she see me?"

This was before the Congress president cancelled her trip to Maharashtra on Sunday due to health concerns.

"Instead," Ranjana says, "why don't you write about my plight? May be she [Sonia Gandhi] will read it and do something."

Ranjana wants good education for her three sons so that they can get decent jobs. Her eldest son is in Class 7 and studies in a school some distance away.

The younger two study in a small school near the family's house. While one is in Class 5, the other in Class 3. Ranjana says there is just one teacher for students of classes 1 to 5.

Ranjana admits that she got a house under the Indira Vikas Yojana in a cluster down the road. But she adds her family cannot live there. According to her, there is just one small room and no electricity or water.

The huts in which she stays stood out from the other huts in the village. It is slightly bigger and the top half of the walls has a blue coat of paint.

A steady stream of journalists has been visiting her ever since her brief moment of fame in 2010.

But, Ranjana says a little has changed in her life. She makes some money stitching clothes for the women in the area. "It's not much. I get Rs. 20 for stitching a blouse."

She and her husband Sadashiv Sonawane say the family's prime source of income is a small stall of cutlery and clothes at village fairs.

They move from fair to fair for four months of the year. Rest of the year, they live rely on what they manage to save.

Ranjana hopes Sonia Gandhi or the Congress government will help her set up a small business or may be a shop.

Asked about BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Ranjana and Sadashiv say they have seen him on TV "but we wonder what he will do".

They, however, know Modi rules Gujarat — a state where people from their village migrate to work in sugarcane fields.

Ranjana is tired, she says, and refuses to pose with her Aadhaar card (number 782474317884). She has locked it away in a box.

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But, her photograph with the prime minister and the Congress president has a special place in her home. It's hung right up there with photographs of Hindu deities.