AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 11180 - Within weeks of govt’s Aadhaar Pay launch, Samsung Pay goes live with UPI

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

Saturday, April 29, 2017

11180 - Within weeks of govt’s Aadhaar Pay launch, Samsung Pay goes live with UPI - Your Story

Within weeks of govt’s Aadhaar Pay launch, Samsung Pay goes live with UPI

Team YS, 27 APRIL 2017

On Monday, Samsung India announced the availability of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on its flagship mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, in India.

With the introduction of UPI, Samsung Pay now integrates card payments, mobile wallets and UPI on one app. Moreover, the transactions made by users through UPI on Samsung Pay would be facilitated through Axis Bank.

Samsung Pay was launched in India last month

With the launch of UPI on Samsung Pay, users can create their unique virtual addresses, enabling them to make seamless bank-to-bank transfers.

Further, according to a press statement from the company, a unique benefit of enabling UPI on the Samsung Pay app is the integration with the users’ address book, which then identifies existing accounts on the contact list.

@pingpay is the UPI handle assigned to Samsung Pay.

UPI is a payment system that powers multiple bank accounts on a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund-routing and merchant payments under one hood.

This would also cater to the ‘peer-to-peer’ collect request, where users can request for payments from their contacts, adding to the convenience of Samsung Pay consumers.

At the launch, Dilip Asbe, Chief Operating Officer, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said,

“We are excited to magnify UPI’s reach by going live on Samsung Pay. This initiative will surely contribute towards assisting our objective of providing convenience and safety to the customers while they make payments. We congratulate Samsung Pay and Axis Bank for emerging as one of the first UPI adopters in this segment.”

While Rajiv Anand, Executive Director - Retail Banking, Axis Bank, added,

Samsung Pay is a simple and secure way to pay using the existing point-of-sale (PoS) network. The addition of UPI to Samsung Pay, in association with NPCI, makes it an even more powerful proposition for customers to transfer money and make payments.

Launched in March this year, Samsung Pay, works on three levels of security—fingerprint authentication, card tokenisation, and Samsung’s defense-grade mobile security platform, Samsung KNOX.

At present, Samsung Pay works with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI Cards, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank.

To launch Samsung Pay, a user needs to swipe up on an eligible Samsung Galaxy smartphone, select the card, authenticate using a fingerprint or PIN and bring the phone near the Point of Sale terminal.

Samsung Pay works with Samsung’s patented Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology as well as with Near Field Communication (NFC).

Just this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti, launched Aadhaar Pay, BHIM Aadhaar-based mobile app (Aadhaar Pay or BHIM Aadhaar), which will allow consumers to pay through their biometric data, linked to their Aadhaar.

At the same time, Aadhaar Pay doesn’t require the customers to carry their smartphone. Customers just need to input their Aadhaar number, select a bank and put in their biometric to validate the transaction, hence, disrupting the use of smartphones for making payments in the country.

On a side note, the Aadhaar Pay platform might also help merchants reduce their costs of deploying digital payments by disrupting PoS, and requiring only a biometric scanner.