AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 9359 - Plastic cards may soon go out of fashion

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

Sunday, February 14, 2016

9359 - Plastic cards may soon go out of fashion - The Hindu

NEW DELHI, February 13, 2016

Plastic cards may soon go out of fashion

VIKAS DHOOT

The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) project was initiated last February by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. Photo shows an Apple official demonstrating the company's Apple Pay mobile payment system.

Very soon, carrying multiple plastic cards may be unnecessary when you go shopping as your mobile phone would be all you need to transact. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and software product think tank ISpirt are ready for the technical launch of a new Unified Payment Interface, that would allow people to people or P2P transactions from any bank account to another, using a mobile phone app.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who is now an advisor to the NPCI, told The Hindu that this inter-operable mobile payments system would revolutionise the way P2P payments are made.

"Think about it as introducing the equivalent of the roaming facility for mobile phones, for your bank account," Mr Nilekani said, adding that eventually the system would allow mobile to mobile payments (without any bank accounts involved) and payments to an Aadhaar number or a virtual address if people are not comfortable sharing their bank account details.

The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) project was initiated last February by Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, and over the past year, the application program interface (API) has been developed that allows payments from any bank account to another.

The technical launch of the interface, built on an open source framework, is in Bangalore on Saturday. Over 500 representatives from startups, banks, and venture capital funds keen on exploring possibilities it throws up for new applications, are likely to attend.

“The UPI is a new layer on top of the IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) that has been used by banks for electronic fund transfers for about five years. This will allow seamless, inter-bank connection using a mobile app that can be used to pay merchants as well as make other ‘proximity payments’ on an offline basis,” said Mr Nilekani, who is the mastermind behind Aadhaar and was the first chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India.

“There is a very simple API that would provide for both push and pull payments. So I can send money to you or you can send me a request to pay, as merchants may do if I buy something from them. I can approve the request on my phone,” Mr Nilekani explained.

“This is a big leap from the old system for credentials, where you give your card to the merchant and there is a security risk. In this model, everything happens through your own phone, your credentials are established and payment is approved,” he said, adding that many new phones come with biometric iris or fingerprint scanners so Aadhaar authentication is possible on these devices.

“A billion people can use this, it’s completely open so it is critical for India’s digital independence. We saw in the net neutrality debate that increasingly, you will end up with large players becoming gatekeepers. With an open stack, even a two-person startup in a garage can create a payment product as good as Apple Pay,” he stressed.

Mr Nilekani expects a billion people to have Aadhaar numbers by this March or April (from 970 million as of now) and said the entry of 21 new banks and the surge in smart phones and bank accounts offers the potential to build all sorts of apps.

“The UPI has a level playing field with no gatekeepers. We can use it to fundamentally change the way we do business or improve any government service or process,” adding that the UPI could do to P2P transactions what direct benefits transfer has done for government to people transactions.