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

Monday, July 21, 2014

5706 - Aadhaar - Government asks UIDAI, census office to match database with beneficiary lists of schemes - Economic Times

Government asks UIDAI, census office to match database with beneficiary lists of schemes
By Vikas Dhoot & M Rajshekhar, ET Bureau | 21 Jul, 2014,

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has backed the UPA's Aadhaar programme for now, but that may not be the final word on whether it will be retained. 

The government has asked the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs Aadhaar, and the census office under the home ministry to test their databases against  beneficiary  lists of schemes such as the LPG subsidy programme as well as documents such as passports to determine which one is more accurate, said senior government officials aware of the development. "Line ministries in charge of different schemes like education subsidy, LPG cylinders and identity documents such as passports, have been requested to share data to enable this matching exercise," said one of the officials. 

The census office is building the National Population Register or NPR by capturing biometrics and photographing residents. The Manmohan Singh government had assigned Aadhaar and NPR to specific states for enrollment. 

On July 5, the PM chaired a meeting to consider the future of the two projects and is learnt to have backed expansion of UID enrollments in 300 districts where around 80% of the population have Aadhaar numbers. This would enable a re-launch of direct benefits transfer for the poor eligible for subsidies and benefits offered under schemes such as the rural jobs programme. 

The UPA had put such transfers backed by Aadhaar on hold in January after widespread complaints about operational problems at the ground level. 

Many beneficiaries were denied benefits as they didn't have Aadhaar numbers, while those who did faced cash-flow problems as they were required to pay the full price for LPG cylinders and then wait for the subsidy to reach their bank accounts. 

Matching names could prove to be a challenge for UIDAI, which has sought the Modi Cabinet's nod for expanding enrollment in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand at a cost of Rs 1,265 crore. In a recent exercise with the rural development ministry, UIDAI could only match 30% of names in its database with beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or MGNREGS. 

Moreover, it had enrolled and generated Aadhaar numbers that exceeded the population in several districts, raising concerns about the quality of verification procedures. UIDAI did not respond to a detailed questionnaire from ET. A senior rural development ministry official confirmed that its database comparison exercise with Aadhaar threw up significant anomalies. 

After seeding a part of its MGNREGS database with Aadhaar numbers, the ministry had sent the details of beneficiaries to the UIDAI for validation. "The UIDAI had to check that its database had the same name linked to the number, but we found that just 30% of the names matched," the official said, adding that the mismatches often arose due to names being spelt differently in both lists. That the MGNREGS databases and job cards issued in states list workers' names in the local language added to the complexity. 


The UIDAI is now trying a new approach for matching the rural employment guarantee list — phonetic comparisons of the two databases. For this, names in the MGNREGS beneficiary list and the Aadhaar number list have to be converted into audio files and then compared
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