AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 9234 - DEITY working on alternative authentication means along with Aadhaar to revive Digital India projects

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

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

9234 - DEITY working on alternative authentication means along with Aadhaar to revive Digital India projects - Economic Times

DEITY working on alternative authentication means along with Aadhaar to revive Digital India projects

Surabhi Agarwal, ET Bureau Jan 1, 2016, 04.29AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court's restrictions over the Aadhaar project has taken the wind out of several marque projects under the Digital India programme, including the Digital Locker project. The department of electronics and information technology (DEITY) is now working on alternatives that will act as means of authentication along with Aadhaar to revive some of these projects.

According to a senior government official, there are around five projects under Digital India for which alternatives are being discussed currently.

Take for instance the DigiLocker project, which is a way to store, receive and authenticate documents on the virtual locker on the Internet. It made a good start after being launched by the Prime Minister in July this year only to have stagnated in the following months due to the uncertainty over their linkage with Aadhaar.

The number of users registered on the platform swelled by 71.8% to 8,96,527 at the end of July but has been registering low single digit growth since August - when the first Supreme Court order came on Aadhaar restricting it use. At the end of December, the number of users who are on the DigiLocker platform 10,50,335.

The official said that for Digilocker, authentication means such as PAN card, e-KYC of the banks, and digital signatures are some of the other options which are being considered. "Even without the Supreme Court's mandate, we have to give other options to citizens since some of them many not have access to Aadhaar," the official added. The person said that by linking these projects only through Aadhaar, the government doesn't want to make it mandatory in any way. "But, the inherent advantage that Aadhaar had of seamless authentication can't be taken away," said the official adding that with authentication means, the government is adding a layer which is the same as verifying documents in physical world.

Other projects which are inherently linked to Aadhaar include esign, Jeevan Pramaan or Digital Life Certificate for pensioners, and Digitise India, the government records digitisation drive project among others.

While Jeevan Pramaan is a biometric enabled system built on Aadhaar for over 10 million pensioner families in India to provide digital life certificates for disbursement of their pensions, e-sign is designed to enable authentication of documents on the fly and on a real-time basis through the Aadhaar authentication platform.

It is being pitched as a convenient alternative for the current process of getting a digital signature, which is cost intensive, time consuming and relatively unsafe.

Similarly under the Digitise India platform, the government has roped in common citizens to digitize its physical records through the crowd sourcing model. The identity and authentication of the crowd agents is done through the Aadhaar number and their remuneration is also credited to their Aadhaar linked bank account number.

ET has reported earlier this week that the government is getting ready to convince the Supreme Court about the use of Aadhaar in improving governance. The Cabinet secretary will helm the drafting of a strategy along with senior government secretaries on extending Aadhaar to more government services.