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, March 18, 2016

9556 - Aadhaar bill: With no respect for the law - Indian Express

Aadhaar bill: With no respect for the law


There is reason to wonder if this law is intended to be taken seriously, except in getting everyone on the data base, making it a scheme to number the population, and giving extraordinary powers to the UIDAI.


To give Mr Jaitley his due, he has been honest this time round and dropped even the pretence of consent.

The disrespect for the law has been an abiding aspect of the UID project, never mind the government (facts have mattered as little, but that is for another time).

In the beginning there was no law; only an executive notification which meant that people did not have any idea of what the scope and limits of the project were. Then, when the pressure built up for a law to be enacted, a Bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha in December 2010, over two months after collection of information and enrolment had begun. In December 2011, a Standing Committee of Parliament, having considered the Bill and the project, rejected not just the Bill but also found that the project should go back to the drawing board.

In the beginning, the project was promoted as voluntary. Then, by the end of 2012, the people of this country were warned that the UID was becoming compulsory in a variety of fields, and we had better get enrolled or risk getting left out. When people went to court challenging the project as being a tool for surveillance, as violative of privacy, as based on imperfect and untested technology, and the court directed that the UID number should not be made mandatory, that order was unapologetically flouted. It was the bullying and threats of exclusion from subsidies and services that drove people to enrol, and then that was projected as voluntary enrolment.


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Now, we are told that the number on the data base is close to a 100 crore, and that that establishes it as a project loved and happily adopted by the people. The troughs and swells of enrolment, however, would tell another tale. Whenever the court spoke to say that no one can be denied any service because they do not have a UID number, there would be a dramatic slowing down of enrolment. When the government would override this injunction and refuse any service to those who could not show they had enrolled, the enrolments would go up. To suggest that this data base was built with the ‘consent’ of the people enrolling would be farther from the truth than imagination can reach. To give Mr Jaitley his due, he has been honest this time round and dropped even the pretence of consent. It doesn’t matter what you think of enrolment; just do it, or else.
From its early stages, privacy was recognised as a serious concern in the context of this project, but it was sidestepped on the pretext either that privacy was a thing of the past anyway, what with Google and Facebook and social media; or that privacy is a larger issue than just the UID project and so should be dealt with in some other forum. Till the day the Attorney General told the court, on behalf of the project, that privacy is not even a fundamental right in the Indian Constitution. That the government was arguing in another case in a courtroom down the corridor that the court should not shoot down the criminal offence of defamation so that the government could safeguard the privacy interests of the people, is a demonstration of deep cynicism and of the importance of tactical ploys over constitutional principles.

Then, when the August 11, 2015 order of the Supreme Court became an obstruction to mandating enrolment, and demand the number as a precondition to getting any service or subsidy, that prompted the move to get past the court order by the passage of the law. And so, the short-circuiting of the Constitution and shortchanging Parliament.
The words Consolidated Fund of India feature in the Bill; but Article 110 is unfortunately clear that a money bill can by definition only contain provisions that pertain to the specific categories of taxation and appropriation from the Consolidated Fund or the Contingency Fund of India; and even incidental taxes, fines and penalties do not a money bill make. The ‘only’ speaks volumes. The UID Bill no way fits the definition of a money bill.
In fact, what the Bill does not do is provide any subsidy, benefit or service. All it does is to say that, if anything is going to be provided by the state, then the UID number may be made a ‘condition’ to getting anything done.
The definitions of each of these terms – subsidies, benefits, services – is sprawling and all over the place. So, ‘benefit’ means any advantage, gift, reward, relief, or payment, in cash or kind …”, and it can be made conditional on UID enrolment. And any private company or person too can ask for the UID number beforehanding over such ‘benefits’. How much of this idea of benefits, or services, including that with which a private company is concerned, has to do with the Consolidated Fund? Does it matter?
There is reason to wonder if this law is intended to be taken seriously, except in getting everyone on the data base, making it a scheme to number the population, and giving extraordinary powers to the UIDAI. Why? Take a look at the definition of ‘resident’. It says that only residents will be enrolled and given numbers; and to qualify as a resident a person must have been resident in India for at least 182 days in the preceding 12 months. One can provide evidence of not being in the country for a certain period by producing a travel document, but what is proof that one has been in India for 182 days? Also, in this grand data base of a 100 crore people, how many people have been enrolled after their residence in India was verified? Will anyone really care what the law says? After all, structures of authority and control are all within the UIDAI and the central government; the people are merely subjects of the state who may be bullied at will.
This continuity between governments in their disregard for the law is stunning.
Views expressed by the author are personal.
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