AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 11712 - UIDAI chief: No breach of data in Aadhaar theft case

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, August 5, 2017

11712 - UIDAI chief: No breach of data in Aadhaar theft case - TNN

UIDAI chief: No breach of data in Aadhaar theft case

Rohith B R | TNN | Aug 4, 2017, 12:37 AM IST

BENGALURU/NEW DELHI: The Qarth-Aadhaar data theft case was the result of fraud at the level of KYC User Agencies (KUAs) and not any breach in the data base of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), officials with the authority said on Thursday.

The data was accessed by the accused from e-hospital, hosted by National Informatics Centre(NIC), described as the Government of India's "prime builder" of e-Government / e-Governance applications, police sources confirmed.

According to the sources, the fraud came to the notice of UIDAI headquarters during a random check by their social media monitoring team. The team found the e-KYC app hosted by the accused, associated with the Qarth Technologies Pvt Limited, and alerted its Bengaluru team to file a police complaint.

"The KUA is likely to be arraigned as the accused no 2," a source said. Abhinav Srivastav, founder of Qarth Technologies start-up, is the accused no 1.

UIDAI chief AB Pandey said, "The UIDAI would like to inform and reassure the public that there is no breach of any Aadhaar data and compromise of individuals' privacy and security in this case."

He said that the App was trying to provide Aadhaar verification to the residents based upon their own consent.

Pandey said that after an inquiry, it was found that the residents were using this App to download their own demographic data after giving their consent through OTP received on their own Aadhaar-linked mobiles.

"In other words, residents were downloading their own demographic data such as name, address, gender through this App. Hence, alleged privacy violations reported in some section of media is not true as no one could not get data of any other person through this App," he said.

While demographic data pertains to address, sex, age, gender and mobile phone number and such details, biometric data pertains to finger prints and iris.

The UIDAI chief said even though residents were downloading their own demographic data, legal actions were initiated against the owner of the App since it was not authorised to provide such services to the people and such acts are criminal offence punishable under Aadhaar Act, 2016.

"It is further reiterated that data of not even a single non-consenting resident has been given by UIDAI through this App. Therefore, any media report suggesting breach of UIDAI's Aadhaar database or CIDR is completely incorrect. Aadhaar data remains fully safe and secure," he added.

KYC User Agencies are franchises contracted with authenticating Aadhaar-enabled services to Aadhaar number holders with the consent of the latter. According to sources in the know, there are, as on date, at least 254 KUAs engaged by the UIDAI, including government and non-government ones.

Assuming a citizen goes to a mobile phone service provider and gives his or her Aadhaar number as identity proof, the service provider would be the KUA who will be authenticating the KYC (Know Your Customer) details.

Once the citizen gives his biometric (thumb print) or authenticates himself through an OTP that comes to his mobile, the e-KYC or the demographic data from UIDAI is passed on to the KUA, which will authenticate whether the citizen's Aadhaar credentials are valid or not.

Speaking to TOI, a senior UIDAI official said that the Qarth case is a lesson for KUAs to protect the authentication keys given to them by Aadhaar so that it is not misused as it had happened in the Qarth case.

"As per UIDAI rules KUA can't sub-share the authentication keys given to them to anybody. We are yet to get details about which KUA was involved in this data misuse case and police have to investigate it. Blaming UIDAI in this case will be like blaming Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for SIM card fraud incidents. As far as Aadhaar is concerned, our Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) is safe and foolproof. There has been no breach here. The system is so solid that there can't have access to biometric details of the Aadhaar holders at any level," the official said.

Apart from KUAs, UIDAI also has tie-ups with Authentication User Agencies (AUAs) which are engaged in providing Aadhaar-enabled services to Aadhaar holders, using the authentication as facilitated by the Authentication Service Agency (ASA). There are 326 AUAs enrolled with UIDAI. Here e-KYC details (like in the case of KUAs) are not provided but only a "YES" or "NO" to confirm someone's Aadhaar registration.