AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 8878 - Forget about Aadhaar, look at what Facebook’s doing

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, October 9, 2015

8878 - Forget about Aadhaar, look at what Facebook’s doing

Forget about Aadhaar, look at what Facebook’s doing

While the European Court of Justice has just delivered a verdict on privacy that should cheer the hearts of the anti-Aadhaar brigade – it has scrapped the ‘Safe Harbor Agreement’ between the US and EU – the origins of the case should chill them.

By: Sarthak Ray | New Delhi | October 8, 2015 7:08 PM

All those worried about the possible invasion of their privacy under Aadhaar would do well to keep in mind social media sites like Facebook – India has 11 crore users of Facebook – or Google for that matter, have a lot more information about them, where they hang out, their likes, dislikes, and the lot.

While the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has just delivered a verdict on privacy that should cheer the hearts of the anti-Aadhaar brigade – it has scrapped the ‘Safe Harbor Agreement’ between the US and EU – the origins of the case should chill them. The case stems from an Austrian law student, Maximilian (Max) Schrems experience with Facebook in 2011 – when Max asked Facebook for the data it had on him, to his horror he was given 1,200 pages of data including certain bits he had deleted!

So all those worried about the possible invasion of their privacy under Aadhaar would do well to keep in mind social media sites like Facebook – India has 11 crore users of Facebook – or Google for that matter, have a lot more information about them, where they hang out, their likes, dislikes, and the lot. While this is not to say India should not have a privacy law, keep in mind Aadhaar officials aver their database is not an invasion of privacy since it cannot be queried on any transaction details of users, it merely authenticates biometrics on request. Hopefully, this will be proved to the Supreme Court which will be hearing the matter soon.

Max heard an official of the Facebook legal team speak about Facebook’s compliance with EU privacy laws as tenable under the UE-EU ‘Safe Harbor Agreement’. Convinced that ‘Safe Harbor’ allowed the social media giant to circumvent EU’s much stricter data protection laws, Schrems asked the company to submit all the data it held about him (he remains a Facebook user to date, as also having a Twitter presence) in 2011.

Schrems then approached Ireland’s data regulator, the Irish Data Commissioner — Facebook’s European headquarters are in Dublin — to get Facebook to stop sending data to the US, saying that the country did not provide sufficient safeguards for user data; he based this inference on the Edward Snowden leaks on the NSA’s Prism programme that allowed the surveillance agency to directly access information from Facebook, Microsoft, Google and other digital companies. But the case was thrown out by the data regulator as “frivolous and vexatious”, in the backdrop of the Safe Harbor agreement. Upon appeal in the European Court of Justice, however, Schrems’ argument was upheld. Europe’s highest court also found the Safe Harbor framework itself to be in violation of the Union’s and some member countries’ strict privacy laws. As per the agreement, US firms listed under the Safe Harbor framework could transfer EU citizens’ data to the US — while remaining consistent with the EU Data Protection Directive — by providing a self-certification to the US department of commerce that they are compliant with the EU privacy protection standards. The enforcement of the certification was left with the US Federal Trade Commission.

Essentially, the agreement set a US watchdog to check if American tech companies were sticking to European laws on privacy with respect to EU users. Safe Harbor-listed firms (including those tagged “not current” or no longer assured the benefits of Safe Harbor) include the usual suspects like Facebook, Google, Twitter and other firms handling sensitive information like 67 accounting firms (including the likes of Grant Thornton), 242 financial services firms and 60 insurance firms (including MetLife, Inc and all its US subsidiaries listed as a single party). There are 5,479 US firms, spanning industries from advertising services to defence equipment, lawn and garden equipment to veterinary equipment and supplies in this list.

First Published on October 08, 2015 7:08 pm