AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 8047 - Smartcards: Volume drives its growth

In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.

On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.

In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.

In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.

In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.

"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Krishnaswamy

Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

8047 - Smartcards: Volume drives its growth

Smartcards: Volume drives its growth

25 May 2015 | Sriraam Selvam | Comment now

Market spends by telecom sector in the smart card market is poised to grow at CAGR of 4.98% over the next four years. Add to that the massive opportunity in social identification projects, the smart card industry is all set for high growth years. Sriraam Selvam reports

The smart card industry in 2012, was predicted to hit the one billion dollar mark in 2015. At the mid-way of the projected year the industry seems to be well on course to exceed the target with several large volume opportunities being generated by the Government schemes aimed to reach out to the poor and ensure the subsidy disbursement is driven through accountability enabled smart cards.

A study back in 2012 forecasted the smart cards ‘to further percolate into a number of other sectors such as credit/debit cards, financial inclusion, public distribution, healthcare, identity management, transportation, etc.’ apart from the telecom sector, which represented the biggest application sector in 2012, accounted for more than 70% of the total market volumes.

The study further stated that ‘In contrast, the National Population Register, which is expected to represent the biggest application segment in 2018, is expected to account for less than 31% of the total market volumes by 2018.’

The latest news of Aadhaar card becoming the world’s largest bio-metric identification programs in the world with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issuing nearly 82 crore cards covering nearly 67% of the population, is proof of the projected estimates for the smart card industry being on track.

Opportunities

The multitude of Government projects for citizen identification like the Aadhaar and benefit schemes like the recently initiated Pradhan Mantri Jan- Dhan Yojana, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and Public Distribution System (PDS) along with driving licence, e-passport, e-visas and transportation services (e.g. Metro rail project) are some of the government projects that are expected to created massive opportunity for the smart card printing industry.

“On an average 600,000 bank accounts are being opened everyday” said V Natarajan, CEO of Aura Print Solutions who represents card manufacturing major NBS technologies in India. “800 million accounts will be opened under this scheme before the end of 2016 with each account holder issued a unique debit cards” he added.

Apart from the Government driven projects, telecom still maintains its huge share in SIM card market and several other private domains like banking (driven by mandatory EMV cards), business loyalty cards, National ID, Health Insurance Card, lottery( scratch card) etc, will be key areas for the growth of this sector.

Prominent factors responsible for the growth of the smart cards market in India would include increasing mobile penetration, demand for plastic money in tier-II and tier-III cities/towns, as well.” said Natarajan.

In terms of size, the India Smart Cards market expected to generate Rs 5276.6 crore by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 12.3% pa. The need for secure and safe financial transactions is also catalysing the smart cards market in India. Consumers’ shift towards plastic money is regarded as key factor in the growth of this segment

V Natarajan, Aura Print Solutions

Challenges

There are several key challenges that ride with the monstrous growth potential of the smart card industry.

“This is a unique industry with variable data printing and data management based print solutions going back to the 1980s, when the plastic card made its humble beginning , which it was for very niche account holders," explained Natarajan.

One of critical challenges for the industry remains the declining prices of the end product, the smart card. This is attributed to two factors, first of which is the increasing production volume which substantially reduces the costs of smart cards. Further, prices are also affected due to a significant drop in the prices of chips used.

One of the study also points to ‘a number of government projects such as the e-passports, EPFO, etc getting delayed or cancelled due to problems like lack of funds, technical issues, legal wrangling etc.’

The study also points to a ‘Lack of standards to ensure inter-operability among varying smart card programs like mobile service providers, transport operators like the ‘Delhi Metro’ and banking systems etc’ and implores them to ‘converge their efforts regardless of their different business objectives i.e market must be stable and based on proven and trusted standards.’

If we have to be concise the definition of Smart cards, it is “managing the data in a secured way and have output in the form of a Plastic Card” security, identity, data management and enable transaction is the rule of the game and this makes it slightly more difficult for new entrants.

Market Adoption

The predictions of a billion dollar market ensured several players entering the market early and seizing the initiative.

Talking about the smart card industry as one of the early entrants Gautham Pai, group managing director of The Manipal Group says, “While working with banks for cheque printing and security printing, we saw the use of plastic money (debit and credit cards) picking up. Five to six years ago, the usage of these cards was very low but was exponential. We did not look at the printing side of this shift, instead allied with a company who could help us set up operations for the plastic cards very quickly. We had the customer base plus respect and reputation with the banks.”

The market also opened up export opportunities with Chennai-based Madras Security Printers (MSP) capturing majority of the African market starting from 2011.

A market leader in smart card manufacturing, MSP has executed several e-governance projects for both the Central and the state governments, including e-PDS cards and voter ID cards in Tamil Nadu.

The market though is slowly but steadily expanding beyond the big names and the exponential growth of the market makes it one of the domains to consider serious investments in.

The small prized possession in your wallet involves various process from the stage of plastic sheets to card. Offset printing/ fusing/ punching/ chip embedding/ personalisation/ hologram stamping/ laser engraving and insertion in a mailer before it finally reaches your pocket.