AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 8712 - Press Conference – State Violates SC orders on UID

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

Friday, September 18, 2015

8712 - Press Conference – State Violates SC orders on UID

*PRESS INVITE*

*Press Conference – State Violates SC orders on UID*

*WHEN: Friday, *18th September 2015, 12.30 pm

*WHERE: *Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC), 5 Windsor Place, Ashoka Road

*Speakers: *Aruna Roy, Usha Ramanathan, Reetika Khera, Anjali Bhardwaj, and persons adversely affected by the UID project

Five times the Supreme Court has issued orders in relation to the UID project, and each time the government and the UIDAI have chosen to brazen it out by ignoring the orders. The most recent was the order of August 11, 2015, when the court said that the UID number may not be used in anything other than in PDS and LPG distribution, even where it shall not be made

compulsory; and that the information may not be used for no other purpose.

The government and the UIDAI continues to flout this order with impunity. The aggressive enrollment and seeding in every data base is in violation of the orders of the court. In the meantime, people face multiple barriers because of their troubles with the UID.

Recently we witnessed the spectacle of the Attorney General arguing in the Supreme Court that the people of India do not have a fundamental right to privacy and that the case be referred to a Constitution Bench. There is little doubt that this was a tactic adopted so that the project can proceed unhindered by the case before the court.

There are, among many others, issues of personal liberty, privacy, national security, exclusion, data as property, the inversion of the relationship between the state and the citizen, the deliberate flouting of court orders, the conversion of voluntary enrolment into mandatory enrolment on threat of

being left out, untested biometrics, no informed consent about the uses to which the data will be subjected, the insecurity of rampant outsourcing, and the absence of an exit option to get out of the UIDAI data base.

Most recently, the UIDAI has set up a Unique Biometrics Centre of Competence about which the UIDAI says: "Nature and diversity of India's working population adds another challenge to achieving uniqueness through biometrics features. Like other technology fields such as telecommunication, we do not have experience like developed countries to leverage for designing UIDAI's biometric systems. For example, the largest existing biometrics database in the world is one order smaller in magnitude than India's needs. Therefore, it is necessary to create a UIDAI Biometrics Centre of Competence (UBCC) that focuses on the unique challenges of UIDAI."

This is evidence of something that critics of the project have been saying all along: that the UID project is essentially an experiment on a whole population.

To discuss this and allied issues we invite you to join us on Friday the 18th of September at 12.30 pm at the Indian Women's Press Corps.

For more background information visit & read the attached documents:

1. Decoding the Aadhaar judgment: No more seeding, not till the privacy issue is settled by the court

http://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/decoding-the-aadhar-judgment-no-more-seeding-not-till-the-privacy-issue-is-settled-by-the-court/

2. Protect the Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right!

http://www.rediff.com/news/column/protect-the-right-to-privacy-as-a-fundamental-right/20150807.htm

3. The Statesman Series:

http://www.thestatesman.com/news/3686-a-virtual-monster-in-the-cloud.html

4. MoneyLife Series: www.moneylife.in/author/gopal-krishna.html

5. UID: from inclusion to exclusion

http://india-seminar.com/2015/672/672_reetika_khera.htm

6. Article in BENGALI TIMES OF INDIA (ei samay)