AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 9129 - Digital dividend: Aadhaar transforms government attendance system

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, December 4, 2015

9129 - Digital dividend: Aadhaar transforms government attendance system - Financial Express

Digital dividend: Aadhaar transforms government attendance system

Aadhaar: The central attendance monitoring system is tracking employees’ presence in government offices across the country real time...

By: Santosh Tiwari | New Delhi | December 3, 2015 5:22 PM

With the help of Aadhaar-based biometric attendance tracking system, it is now possible to keep track of the presence of any government official at any point of time, across the country. (Express Photo)

The central attendance monitoring system based on Aadhaar is tracking employees’ presence in government offices across the country real time.

Go to the government employees’ attendance management portal and it will take no time to gather what a simple digital solution can achieve in administration and governance.

With the help of Aadhaar-based biometric attendance tracking system, it is now possible to keep track of the presence of any government official at any point of time, across the country.

At the time of writing, 612 organisations, with 170,956 employees, are already availing this facility.

The portal’s dashboard flashes real time attendance statistics showing the number of employees present in the office at a given point of time, and also information like the average in-and-out time of employees.

Former mission director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and current chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), R S Sharma, experimented with it in Jharkhand when he was chief secretary there, and then implemented it at the national level when he came back to the Centre as Secretary, Department of Information Technology.

The best part is there is no cumbersome process for joining this Aadhaar-based online attendance system.

How does an organisation start Biometric Attendance System (BAS) for their employees?

Step 1: Submit details of the nodal officer and upload a signed request by the head of the department on attendance.gov.in portal. System would send OTP to the mobile number/email id of the nodal officer which needs to be entered again on the portal for verification. Back-end administrator would then check the details of the organisation submitted and make the organisation active by assigning it a unique sub-domain which will be the first name of the website. Nodal officer will then be sent an email by the system giving username (which will be the sub-domain name assigned to the organisation) and a password.

Step 2: Nodal officer would need to login on attendance.gov.in with the user name and password sent on completion of step 1 and then create master list of locations of their offices, designation of their offices along with designation equivalence and divisions/units/groups within their organisation.

Step 3: After nodal officer completes step 1 & 2, employee can start registering on-line at attendance.gov.in by submitting their details along with their Aadhaar number.

Step 4: Nodal Officer would need to verify details submitted by the employee including whether Aadhaar number entered by the employee belongs to him/her. After completing of the above verification, employee would be informed by SMS/Email that his registration process is completed on the attendance.gov.in is completed.

An employee will be able to mark his attendance on any BAS terminal installed in any government building. This is possible as employee database for all central government employees is maintained centrally with a unique 6 digit id provided for every government employee (based on the last 6 or first 6 digits of his/her Aadhaar number whichever is available in the system).

The dashboard reports would show the location/building from where an employee has marked his attendance.

Clearly, a simple digital solution is all set to tackle absenteeism in the government offices throughout the country — a big digital dividend that costs hardly anything.

(Keep looking at this space for more examples of this kind on how digital solutions are transforming administration and governance in the country. If you have any of these and want to share it with us, mail it to feonline@expressindia.com).

First Published on December 03, 2015 4:15 pm