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, December 3, 2015

9106 - MapR And Big Data In The World's Largest Biometric Database Project - Forbes

NOV 25, 2015 @ 11:50 AM 3,384 VIEWS

MapR And Big Data In The World's Largest Biometric Database Project

Ambika Behal , CONTRIBUTOR
I cover female entrepreneurs and multinationals in India.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

India’s Aadhaar project is one of the world’s most ambitious big data projects – aiming to collect, store and utilize biometric information from a population of over a billion people – so of course there are challenges, but also an incredible opportunity, says MapR, the company behind the technology.

Aadhaar, essentially a 12-digit number issued to individuals by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), was commissioned by the Government of India in 2009. Serving as the grand architect and first chairman of the highly technological project was Infosys co-founder and former CEO Nandan Nilekani.

Intended as a unique identifier for Indian citizens, the aim of Aadhaar, the word roughly translated as ‘base’ or ‘support’, is to eliminate the issue of false identities and prevent resulting fraud in financial transactions.

California-headquartered MapR, developer and distributor of the Apache APA -4.26% Hadoop technology, which works to integrate web-scale enterprise storage and real-time database technologies, has been applying this skill-set to Aadhaar.

“Multiple challenges include storage – analytics to make sure the data is accurate, security, and very high-volumes of authentications,” says MapR co-founder and CEO John Schroeder.

With over a billion people to process, Aadhaar requires a technological platform that enables storage as well as acceptance of millions of authentications a day.


Iris scan in progress in India’s Aadhaar project; photo courtesy of MapR

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Individuals take their number and offer up a fingerprint or iris-scan in order to prove their identity – which is pulled and matched from the database to a headshot photo, which has also been stored. With over a hundred million identity verifications taking place each day, Schroeder says it is important that all of it is processed in real-time – at a speed of approximately 200 milliseconds.

India boasts a large rural population, many of who continue to live in regions not yet connected to the 21st century grid.
“It had to be implemented in a very economical way,” says Schroeder, “enrollment is on inexpensive laptops, the low bandwidth and resilient technology must be able to work with the registrations coming in from areas of low connectivity.”
Spending six and a half years on developing the platform for this kind of challenge, Schroeder points out just how revolutionary it is to be able to accept and store data from the 928 million and growing numbers in the Aadhaar database.
The Aadhaar project though, is currently the tip of the iceberg, says Schroeder, who expects the built-scale and built-ability for real-time processing will skyrocket with increasing numbers joining the system – enabling for different ways of utilizing the technology for authentication processes.

“Aadhaar is a huge leap-frog over the U.S. where social security is just a number,” says Schroeder, “we don’t have the validation and biometric identification to match the person.”

The simple implementation of big-data storage as a starting point means that India has a great opportunity to leap-frog much of the world in its potential ability to use the technology in ways of delivering healthcare, insurance services, perhaps even equipment delivery, says Schroeder.

MapR CEO and co-founder John Schroeder; photo courtesy of MapR

“The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next wave of big data,” says Schroeder, exemplifying Monsanto MON +0.00%’s move to implement agricultural equipment collecting microclimate and soil samples in the thousands, out in the field, and storing it on big-data systems in real-time.

MapR has also been working with telecom companies in Asia-Pacific, using analytics to enable companies to understand their subscribers.

There’s also been a bit of buzz about an IPO for MapR.
“We’re ahead of the plan in terms of growth rates – we’ll be able to take the company public when we feel like the markets are right,” says Schroeder, “we’ve got the luxury and flexibility to pull the trigger, perhaps in 2016 or 2017.”
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