Letter to PMO by
There is conflicting news in the media about your policy on the UID and NPR. I also trust you have received all previous mails sent to you on the matter.
I am writing to you again, to bring to your urgent attention the governance disaster, risk to the national security and failure of the rule of law that will happen if the UPA's flagship program, the UID, were not scrapped.
The UID is not a proof of identity. It is not even a proof of address. Worse it is not even a proof of existence: it does not prove that the person with a UID is a real person.
The UID is merely a random number assigned to unverified and unaudited data submitted by third parties paid per record. It provides no way to verify if the 12-digit number is one issued by the UIDAI, or even who submitted the biometric and demographic data. Worse, there is no way to tell if this number belongs to a real individual, or to the individual who submits the number, or is even a number generated through a diligent process, or by an authentic enroller, registrar, or the UIDAI. What is unbelievable is the identity solution cannot authenticate its own genuineness, the genuineness of its enrollers, registrars or of the UIDAI itself.
You will agree that the use of such unauditable, unverifiable and unauthentic-able number to authenticate identity, to serve as the basis for governance, to be used to deliver benefits, rights and entitlements, to be used to open bank accounts and transfer money, to create citizen registers or electoral rolls will seriously compromise governance, national security and the rule of law.
The former Chairperson of UIDAI sat on various committees that forced the use and linkage of UID by different departments. By linking the UID to the NPR and other government databases it is jeopardizing the fidelity of these databases, the delivery of rights, entitlements and services to the citizens, the credibility and outreach of governance and national security. It is creating undetectable back-doors to cause identity theft, embezzlement, money laundering, destruction of financial institutions, destruction of citizen registers (NPR, and Electoral Rolls) and massive failures of delivery of rights and entitlements to citizens.
What then should the government's policy on the UID and NPR be?
# Scrap the UID and destroy its database as was done by the UK govt.
# Delink NPR and other databases from UID.
# Internally connect the birth, marriage, address registration and death records without requiring any form, id numbers or id from citizens to create a NPR.
# Establish an audit cell with CAG to audit NPR.
# No citizen should need to submit to government any document issued by the government itself.
# No one to be denied any service, entitlement or right for want of Id; Id of person benefiting from service, entitlement or right to be given recognition for auditability and future transactions.
# Undertake annual audits of delivery of service, entitlement or right and seek the creation of a register of the excluded to ensure no one will be excluded from rights.
# Delink NPR and other databases from UID.
# Internally connect the birth, marriage, address registration and death records without requiring any form, id numbers or id from citizens to create a NPR.
# Establish an audit cell with CAG to audit NPR.
# No citizen should need to submit to government any document issued by the government itself.
# No one to be denied any service, entitlement or right for want of Id; Id of person benefiting from service, entitlement or right to be given recognition for auditability and future transactions.
# Undertake annual audits of delivery of service, entitlement or right and seek the creation of a register of the excluded to ensure no one will be excluded from rights.
I urge you, to arrest further losses to the country before its governability, security and integrity is compromised, to stop enrollments for UID, freeze the database and use of UID and appoint an commission of enquiry to work out a plan to destroy the UID database and use of UID as was done by the UK government when David Cameroon took over as the Prime Minister. In the interest of governance, the Cabinet Secretary, the Home Ministry, the RBI, the ECI and the Registrar General of India need to be urgently asked to stop the use of the UID and delink all their data from UID.
I am happy to provide you with more information as well as help design alternate ways to clean government databases without inconveniencing a single citizen.
Sincerely,
Anupam Saraph