AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 6062 - Service providers experiment with voice biometrics as an additional layer of security for remote transactions

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

Thursday, November 27, 2014

6062 - Service providers experiment with voice biometrics as an additional layer of security for remote transactions - Economic Times

Service providers experiment with voice biometrics as an additional layer of security for remote transactions

Payal Ganguly, ET Bureau Nov 22, 2014, 03.09AM IST

HYDERABAD: Service providers from telecom operators to banks and government agencies are increasingly experimenting with voice biometrics as an additional layer of security for remote transactions.

Some foreign banks allow customers to use voiceprint to skip call-centre security questions, such as mother's maiden name. Signing contracts remotely, authenticating candidates on telephone interviews and keeping electronic records safe are just some of the opportunities the technology opens up. In India, agencies collecting data for the Aadhaar unique identification project may record your voiceprint as well with fingerprints and iris impression if a current proposal is accepted.

To remotely identify a person, this tool uses voiceprint — a set of characteristics of the voice that is measurable and unique to each individual — which is then verified with the print already taken and stored in the database. The process does not need additional equipment, such as scanners used every time the fingerprint is verified. You could just speak over the phone.

"Voice biometrics is the only technology solution for security which works remotely for authentication and does not require any physical device. This works well for inclusion in schemes where solutions such as pin or passcode have to be keyed in," said Umesh Sachdev, co-founder and CEO of Uniphore Software Systems. The Chennai-based company that provides software solutions for services ranging from mobile marketing to speech recognition and audio mining expects contribution of voice biometrics solutions to make up 40 per cent of its revenues by 2017. Incorporated in 2008, Uniphore is targeting annual revenue of $20 million (more than Rs 120 crore) by 2017.

Apart from solutions for banks and government pilots, Uniphore has devised products for authenticating candidates in telephone interviews and for patients to protect electronic medical records. In India, a large number of solution providers utilising speech recognition and authentication are startups and growth-stage companies focusing on the enterprise solutions market.

The potential is huge, with the government now aiming to deliver services through smartphones under the Digital India initiative, where authentication of the beneficiary will be key. Voice biometrics has the potential to become a $1.5-billion industry by 2018-19 in India, said Anil Kona, partner, fraud investigation and dispute services, Ernst & Young India.

"In India, voice biometrics is proposed to be used by the Aadhaar project as a secondary level of authentication. The other industries using the technology are currently banks with back-end operations in the country, which using voice biometrics and analysis at their BPOs to authenticate the user as well as monitor the salesforce."

Barclays Bank is one of the first to implement voice biometrics for authentication. "All the validation done by BPOs can now be done through voice biometrics. We are looking at entertainment and e-commerce as entry points into the market," said Varun Chandra, co-founder and CEO of InCights Mobile Solutions. The voice tool will likely have a major role to play in the online retail industry. Nearly 40 per cent of cashon-delivery (COD) orders are returned by Indian consumers and cost ecommerce players double the courier charges.

"We are looking at devising solutions for user authentication when the order is initiated and the voice signature can be used during delivery to identify the end customer and cut losses in cases where they deny having placed the order," said Atul Sharma, co-founder and chief technology officer of Ozonetel Systems, which acquired the speech-recognition vertical of Yantra Software earlier this year.