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, June 10, 2016

10113 - Sin in SIM: Dial F for fraud - Governance Now

Criminals have been using forged documents to get SIM cards. Their free run can end soon as the customer’s identity will be verified with Aadhaar-based biometrics

Taru Bhatia | June 7, 2016

- See more at: http://www.governancenow.com/gov-next/egov/sin-in-sim-dial-f-fraud#sthash.2kJVZuEZ.dpuf

Ashish Asthana

Vijay Aggarwal, a 32-year-old businessman from Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh city, last year received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as an agent from Birla Sun Life Insurance. Vijay was told that he had got a bonus of Rs 75,000 on his policy, and to redeem it, he was asked to deposit Rs 14,000 in a bank account. He deposited the money, but didn’t receive any bonus. Instead, he got another phone call.

“The person told me that because of some technical error I hadn’t got my bonus yet. But if I gave Rs 11,000 more, I would straight away get a bonus of Rs. 1 lakh,” Vijay says. A series of phone calls continued, and Vijay claims in his FIR that he gave away Rs. 58 lakh to a stranger. The culprits were arrested, but Vijay couldn’t recover his money.

The police later found that forged papers had been used to get a SIM card from which the phone calls were made.

Vijay is not the only one to have fallen prey to this kind of crime. Chandrashekhar, a retired government employee from Lucknow, was duped of more than Rs. 20 lakh a year ago through a phone call by a person, who introduced himself as an agent from SBI Life Insurance. In that case too, the SIM card had been issued on forged documents.

Such crimes which include selling fake credit cards, insurance policy and loans on phone are termed white-collar frauds, and they are routinely committed across the country. And they all have a common thread – the criminals in such cases use fake documents to procure SIM cards.

In December last year, the Uttar Pradesh special task force (UPSTF) arrested more than 100 people for running fake call centres in Delhi and Noida and for duping people by posing as insurance agents. UPSTF additional superintendent Triveni Singh says that the accused procured records of people from insurance companies, got SIM cards on false identity, contacted people as insurance agents, and duped them.

“Last year, 342 people were arrested in UP for running fraud call centres, and more than Rs. 100 crore was acquired fraudulently,” he says, adding that people across the country are being duped through such means.

Who do we blame for such crimes? Singh feels telecom operators need to be made accountable for crimes committed over phone, and lacking a strict customer verification system in place.

Weak verification system

Committing crime via phones has become convenient due to easy availability of SIM cards, especially prepaid SIM cards. In fact, arranging an address and identity proof is enough to get a SIM card.

An individual can buy up to nine SIM cards as per the telecom ministry guidelines. It has come to light that a retailer can misuse genuine documents to issue a number to another person.

Moreover, technology is helping criminals to create fake identity in order to get a SIM card. Today, with the help of certain photo-editing softwares, one can forge an identity, and use it to activate mobile numbers. Since physical verification is not mandatory in activating SIM cards, such incidents are on the rise.

In January, the Delhi crime branch seized 205 pre-activated SIM cards of Vodafone and Idea. The sleuths also got hold of a thick bundle of forged documents that were used to activate those numbers. “There are some genuine cases when a person does not have an identity proof, and yet gets a SIM card. But such cases are limited in number. Majority of buyers of SIM cards that are illegally activated are criminals,” says sub-inspector Sanjeev Yadav from Delhi crime branch.

From cheating to extortion to terror, pre-activated SIM cards are being used due to poor verification mechanism, Yadav says.
“Such a faulty verification system can cause a threat to national security too. Telecom operators need to take responsibility. They carry out rigorous verification for postpaid SIM cards. But when it comes to prepaid SIM cards, verification is loosely done,” Yadav adds.

In the current system, to buy a prepaid SIM card, a person manually fills a customer acquisition form (CAF) and provides his or her identity proof and address proof along with a passport size photograph to the retailer, who in turn sends the CAF to the operator concerned. The user gets a verification call before the number is activated.

“Every day we are activating so many numbers, that it is not possible for us to physically verify each number,” says Sanjeev Arora, deputy general manager, Vodafone.

In case there are complaints against any number running on fake ID, we file an FIR as per the telecom ministry guidelines and deactivate the number and black-list the retailer who is involved in fraudulent activities, Arora adds.

There were 102.66 crore mobile phone subscribers till February 2016, as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The number continues to rise.

On this matter, RS Sharma, chairman, TRAI, told Governance Now, “The present subscriber verification method cannot be said to be fully secure and robust.”

Making a secure channel

On TRAI’s recommendation, the ministry of telecommunications is planning to overhaul the current system of user verification.
Soon SIM card sale at the retail point will be linked to a user’s Aadhaar number and biometrics. This means the SIM card retailer at the point of sale will take the fingerprint or iris scan of the buyer, along with his or her Aadhaar number. Only after performing online know-your-customer (KYC) with Unique Identity Authority India (UIDAI), CAF will appear on the retailer’s computer screen, which will be submitted online.

“E-KYC verification will not only reduce the risk of identity fraud and document forgery, but it will also make the entire process of subscriber verification paperless,” Sharma says, adding that online verification will allow instant activation of SIM card. The process however will run parallel to the manual process.

“Aadhaar-based biometric e-KYC for paperless activation for telephone connection has been piloted by some telecom operators at 107 retail locations in five cities. Therefore, we hope that it would be accepted by DoT very soon,” Sharma says.

As per the government’s figure, total number of Aadhaar identities generated so far is 100.23 crore.
Now to implement the project successfully, operators need to equip each retail point with equipment to capture biometrics.

Moreover, ensuring internet connectivity for instant online verification is also important. Introducing biometrics for the sale of the SIM card will create a secure channel, and help detect fake documents.

taru@governancenow.com

(The story appears in the June 1-15, 2016 issue)
- See more at: http://www.governancenow.com/gov-next/egov/sin-in-sim-dial-f-fraud#sthash.2kJVZuEZ.dpuf