AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 10282 - UIDAI wants to make mobile phones Aadhaar-enabled, holds discussion with smartphone makers

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, August 10, 2016

10282 - UIDAI wants to make mobile phones Aadhaar-enabled, holds discussion with smartphone makers - Economic Times

UIDAI wants to make mobile phones Aadhaar-enabled, holds discussion with smartphone makers

By Aman Sharma & Neha Alawadhi, ET Bureau | Jul 29, 2016, 07.01 AM IST

Chips of Aadhaar-enabled smartphones will be encrypted with a UIDAI key and the phones will be connected to the Aadhaar server.

NEW DELHI: Your smartphone may become a gamechanger for India's public policy, becoming a one-stop instrument for instant identity authentication that will allow you to receive all government services that work on the Aadhaar platform.

A meeting on Wednesday between Ajay Bhushan Pandey, chief executive officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which administers Aadhaar, and senior executives of smartphone-makers Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and Micromax, and product software think tank iSPIRT, discussed ways to make mobile phone handsets Aadhaar-enabled.

Pandey told ET the initial response of smartphone company executives was "positive" and they said they will have to consult their headquarters before taking the idea further.

Here's UIDAI's idea: chips of Aadhaar-enabled smartphones will be encrypted with a UIDAI key and the phones will be connected to the Aadhaar server. The key is a security feature to prevent information leakage. The server connection will allow instant fingerprint and iris authentication. Some high-end smartphones already have fingerprint and iris recognition technology embedded in their operating system. The technology bar for putting these features in smartphones is not high — most smartphones can be equipped similarly.

"This can be a game-changing feature in phones to become the identity of a person and let him do more transactions on the phone in a secure manner. This is perhaps the first time something like this will be attempted in the world," the UIDAI CEO told ET.

Microsoft and Micromax declined to comment. Apple and Google didn't respond to ET's questions. A Samsung India spokesperson said the company is the only phone-maker to have already embedded Aadhaar-friendly technology in one of its handsets.

Pandey explained the rationale behind the idea in detail: "Nearly 104 crore Indians have Aadhaar and almost 40 crore have smartphones. Every agency requires authentication via Aadhaar. If people don't need to go to any office to authenticate their identity and get government services, and if they are able to do so through their mobile phones, this can be the big gamechanger," he said.

Business opportunity Pandey also said smartphone-makers should see Aadhaar-friendly instruments as a business opportunity, just as GPS-enabled phones were. As Aadhaar takes deeper hold as the interface between Indians and their governments, at the Centre and in states, and as smartphone sales go up, handsets that offer this facility will be an attractive consumer proposition, the UIDAI CEO said.

Samsung India told ET: "Galaxy Tab Iris will support government benefit programmes and enable banks and financial institutions to streamline the process of an individual's authentication, regardless of language and literacy barriers."

There are, however, a few issues to be sorted out before Aadhaar-enabled phones become a viable proposition for manufacturers. A smartphone industry executive, who did not wish to be identified, said companies running operating systems such as iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) may have worries over sending fingerprint and iris data over "unsecure" networks, raising privacy issues. Apple is known to be extremely reluctant about opening up its operating system to any external system.

The UIDAI CEO told ET the solution is a "registered device".

He said the biometric information can get encrypted by a UIDAI key at the chip level in phones, making it impossible for anyone but the Aadhaar server to see the information. Such encryption will ensure the information can't be decrypted and reused. "We have explained this to phone manufacturers," Pandey said.

He also said UIDAI can address other concerns about privacy since the authority has ensured full privacy and security of personal biometric information of 104 crore citizens. He said laptops used for capturing biometric information have an Aadhaar key that encrypts the information, and there has been no leakage of information.