Why this Blog ? News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.
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, October 30, 2015
9010 - How Safe Is Your Identity Under Aadhar? - Money Life
9009 - Gurgaon announces mandatory Aadhaar cards for LPG connections - Economic Times
9008 - It's an erroneous impression that Aadhaar no. is mandatory to get UAM filed: MSME Secretary - KNN India
9007 - National DigiLocker reaches nearly 1M users - Medianama
9006 - Guidelines on PoS person issued - The Hindu
9005 - The unambiguous benefits of cash transfer - Live Mint
Thursday, October 29, 2015
9004 - Modi urges states to finish Aadhaar process by January 26 - Asian Age
- Oct 28, 2015 - Animesh Singh | New Delh
9003 - Wait becomes longer for opening NPS accounts online - Live Mint
9002 - Bengaluru cops to use aadhaar data to trace accident victims' kin - Economic Times
9001 - UP steps up pace to complete Aadhaar card project - TNN
9000 - ‘Focus has to be on protecting sensitive data’ - Financial Express
8999 - Maharashtra government targets schools to complete 100% Aadhaar enrollment - DNA
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
8998 - Why does Right to Privacy needs a re-look? 23-OCT-2015 - Jagran Josj
2. If such a right exists, what is the source and what are the contours of such a right as there is no express provision in the Constitution delineating it?
As per the petitioners, Aadhaar enrolment requires submission of demographic and bio metric information and thus, it violates individuals to right to privacy.
2. When citizens/residents have nothing to hide, what is the problem in subsuming their privacy to legitimate institutions for greater good of the country?
3. Instead of terming it as a breach of privacy, the initiatives should be understood as the government’s genuine effort to know their citizens in a better way which is essential for efficient allocation of scarce resources to the needy population in a diverse country like India.
8997 - IT has not cut banks' costs: Rajan - TNN
8996 - Aadhaar will help in financial inclusion: Raghuram Rajan - Economic Times
8995 - Now schools roped in for Aadhaar drive - TNN
CHENNAI: Now, schools in the city are being roped in as part of an Aadhaar enrolment drive in the city. A notification by the education department a week ago instructed several city schools to collect aadhaar card details of their students and their parents. Camps are being held in selected school centres of Tamil Nadu to enroll those who don't have an aadhaar card.
A representative of SBOA Matriculation Higher Secondary School, who wished to be anonymous, said it was becoming very difficult for them to collect details. "Many parents have come and said they cannot share such confidential information. It is not an easy process," the representative said. |
Saturday, October 24, 2015
8994 - Google Freaks out After Alex Jones Storms head quarters
Prison Planet.com
October 23, 2015
Within seconds of entering the building for an event being held by Google, Jones and his film crew were told that the company didn’t allow video recording, despite the fact that a huge sign on the wall made it clear that Google was recording everyone in the vicinity.
8993 - Ghost Savings: Govt data shows consumption of subsidised LPG going up - Money Life
8992 - Rajasthan reaps benefit from Aadhaar-seeded PDS and bank - IBN Live
8991 - Karnataka’s public distribution system to go digital within three months - Live Mint
8990 - Aadhaar card mandatory for govt school students? - TNN
8989 - Over 29,500 plastic Aadhaar cards issued - The Hindu
- STAFF REPORTER
8988 - Fact check: Will restricting Aadhaar now affect crores of welfare recipients?- Scroll.In
Direct Benefit Transfers (in crores).
Direct Benefit Transfers through various modes (%).
8987 - Aadhaar gets a boost - Business Stadard
Aadhaar is best understood as a technology foundation upon which India can build a better, more-targeted and less-leaky subsidies system - food and fuel subsidies have been grossly misdirected over the past several decades. It can also help achieve radically higher rates of financial inclusion. In Bengaluru, efforts by a non-governmental organisation has seen construction labourers, among others, open bank accounts late at night at small grocery stores and remit money to their families in rural India. By being able to do so without paying onerous commissions of as much as Rs 100 for a remittance of Rs 1,000 has made them eager adopters of a financial inclusion effort that uses Aadhaar as a backbone. Aadhaar thus enjoys support at both ends of the policy spectrum: the poor without bank accounts, who are delighted to have access to services that are often elusive, and policymakers, who see larger goals such as reducing the fiscal deficit and wasteful expenditure. Not surprisingly, the judgment last week was welcomed by both the central bank governor and the finance minister. Chief Justice H L Dattu put forward an elemental question: if Aadhaar was to be used for the public distribution system and cooking gas supplies, "why not extend it to other activities?"
The thorny question of whether Aadhaar is a threat to privacy and indeed whether privacy is a fundamental right has again been referred to a larger bench to adjudicate. Many observers have criticised the government for muddling the issue of using Aadhaar by arguing that there was no fundamental right to privacy. Indeed, the government might not have had to embark on this long and tortuous road of protracted legal challenges to Aadhaar if it had legislated adequate laws to protect privacy. Aadhaar has been something of a case study in enrolment - some 920 million Indians have an Aadhaar identity - but its safeguards and benefits are poorly understood by many in the middle class. The use of it for a "know your customer", for instance, stays within the banking system. When an authentication is done, the system does not know the purpose for which it was done. No system this large is immune from, say, a hacker, but what it replaces was riddled with abuse. But that is no excuse for not putting in place a privacy law to prevent anybody from misusing individual data. The court's decision allowing a wider use of Aadhaar should ensure improved governance that is both more humane and pragmatic in dispensing welfare benefits. The government should now urgently get down to the task of framing an effective privacy law to address all doubts and concerns over data security.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
8986 - Apple, Google and Twitter among 22 tech companies opposing Cisa bill - The Guardian
- The Computer and Communications Industry Association, representing Google, Facebook, Yahoo and several others: “Cisa’s prescribed mechanism for sharing of cyber threat information does not sufficiently protect users’ privacy or appropriately limit the permissible uses of information shared with the government. In addition, the bill authorizes entities to employ network defense measures that might cause collateral harm to the systems of innocent third parties.”
- The Business Software Alliance (BSA), representing Apple, Adobe, Dell and HP, among others, did an abrupt about-face. From August: “It is important to advance legislation that removes the legal barriers that discourage information sharing between the public and privates sectors while protecting consumer privacy, and that’s a critical balance to reach.” And then, from September, after negative coverage: “For clarity, BSA does not support any of the three current bills pending before Congress, including the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa).”
- Salesforce, represented by the BSA, felt the need to go further: “Salesforce does not support Cisa and has never supported Cisa.”
- More broadly, Microsoft’s chief legal officer, Brad Smith, said that US attitudes toward privacy had become damaging to the ability of the tech sector to work abroad. Calling the right to privacy “fundamental”, Smith wrote: “It is untenable to expect people to rely on a notion of privacy protection that changes every timesomeone else moves their information around. No fundamental right can rest on such a shaky foundation.”
- And Twitter, the day before the bill was reintroduced: