AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 9853 - Aadhaar shackles on smart cards

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

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

9853 - Aadhaar shackles on smart cards - Telegraph India

Aadhaar shackles on smart cards

ANANYA SENGUPTA

New Delhi, April 17: A PMO directive to link all government welfare schemes to the Aadhaar card and avoid issuing separate smart cards for them has put several ministries in a spot.

The directive, in the form of a letter to the information and technology ministry, came after Parliament passed the Aadhaar bill last month. By then, several ministries had already worked out the modalities to issue smart cards for their schemes.

The social justice and empowerment ministry was gearing to roll out unique identity cards for the disabled, promised more than a year earlier, in two months. It's now contemplating linking the I-cards to the Aadhaar number.

"When these I-cards were planned, it was not mandatory for the disabled to have Aadhaar numbers to apply for them. After the directive, it's likely that this will be made mandatory. So, in effect, only those with the Aadhaar number can get their I-cards," a ministry official said.

"This will invariably delay the process. We are still deciding whether we should link it to Aadhaar immediately or do it in a phased manner."

Sources said the ministry had already developed the software for the cards and floated tenders for printing them. The pilot project for the I-cards is likely to begin in two months in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, after which they will be issued in a phased manner starting with 12 states.

"Our I-card project will continue as Aadhaar does not incorporate the information we need to create a database of the disabled," the official said.

"We were told the Aadhaar card cannot reflect the specifics of disability or the pension schemes and scholarships for the disabled. So the best way is to link the I-card to Aadhaar."

But the health ministry, planning since January to roll out an expanded version of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, a health insurance scheme that will cover 50 crore people, may have to drop the project.

The PMO has made it clear that all new government schemes must use the Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer platform instead of smart cards.

Under the health scheme, smart cards are issued to below-poverty-line families. There are now about 3.72 crore active smart cards under the scheme.

Another smart card project likely to be nixed is the labour ministry's unorganised workers' identification number or UWIN card. It would have enabled multiple ministries to provide services to such workers on a single card. In a letter to the labour secretary, Shankar Agarwal, the PMO panned the proposal.

"It was conveyed to us that the workers can use the Aadhaar number to avail themselves of the benefits of different schemes," a labour ministry official said.

"The PMO felt that issuing smart cards would only lead to duplication and create issues of linkages to databases already tied to Aadhaar."

Unlike the Aadhaar card, which uses biometrics to specifically identify an individual, a smart card or the UWIN functions like a credit/debit card that carries a person's details so that he or she can obtain certain benefits linked to it.