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, November 3, 2017

12209 - Targeted delivery: Grievance system, robust cybersecurity critical to Aadhaar’s success - Indian Express

Targeted delivery: Grievance system, robust cybersecurity critical to Aadhaar’s success

Even as the govt is making efforts to make Aadhaar mandatory for schemes and services, experts say that it is necessary put in place safeguards such as secure data security system for a successful unique identity programme.

Written by Pranav Mukul | New Delhi | Updated: October 17, 2017 2:38 am


 A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is set to hear a batch of petitions on Aadhaar related matters in November (Illustration: C R Sasikumar)

Alongside the government’s move to build an ecosystem around Aadhaar that aims to reduce its overall subsidy burden by making targeted delivery of these benefits, legal experts and analysts suggest that it may be necessary to simultaneously put in place a number of safeguards. These include having a robust data security system, a grievance redressal mechanism and ensuring that there is no basis for exclusion of any of the beneficiaries. In the due course, over 135 Central government schemes are slated to leverage Aadhaar as an authentication mechanism.

For many of these schemes and services, while the respective ministries have not used the term “mandatory” in their notifications, they have said that the beneficiaries will be “required to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication”, before a deadline, which has now been extended to December 31, 2017, in most cases. 

These include schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, targeted public distribution system, Employees Pension Scheme and Central scholarships, among various others.

Interestingly, a majority of these notifications that call for people to furnish their Aadhaar details to receive benefits under the schemes start with an identical template: “Whereas, the use of Aadhaar as identity document for delivery of services or benefits or subsidies simplifies the government delivery process, bring in transparency and efficiency, and enables beneficiaries to get their entitlements directly in a convenient and seamless manner and Aadhaar obviates the need for producing multiple documents to prove one’s identity,”. After this, the notifications detail the scheme being run by the respective ministry and then citing Section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, notify the requirement of Aadhaar, or proof of enrolment, to avail the benefits.

Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act states:
“The Central government or, as the case may be, the state government may, for the purpose of establishing identity of an individual as a condition for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred from, or the receipt therefrom forms part of, the Consolidated Fund of India, require that such individual undergo authentication, or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or in the case of an individual to whom no Aadhaar number has been assigned, such individual makes an application for enrolment”.

Even as most of these schemes use the provisions under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act to use the biometric identity system as a tool for delivery of services, some of the services for which Aadhaar has been made mandatory do not have visibly evident benefits for the end-consumers. For instance, the order by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to make Aadhaar-based verifications mandatory for all the existing mobile subscribers by February 2018.

When contacted, Cellular Operators Association of India’s (COAI) director general Rajan Mathews told The Indian Express that using Aadhaar-based e-KYC verification, mobile operators will be able to conduct the verification in a “much more secure way”. “Previously, it was a very document-oriented process and was subject to all kinds of leakages. We had to verify whether the documents submitted were true or fraudulent, and as a result, the industry was subject to a lot of penalties imposed by the DoT. This will hopefully reduce all that,” Mathews said. “Benefit to the consumer is that someone won’t be able to able to acquire a connection based on his or her fraudulent documents,” he added. Furthermore, according to COAI estimates, the industry will have to bear a cost of nearly Rs 2,500 crore to re-verify all of the existing mobile subscribers in India. Even though Mathews said that Aadhaar-based e-KYC was a much more secure way to conduct verification, legal experts believe that a lot needs to be done to make Aadhaar secure.

“It’s not just about making Aadhaar mandatory, it’s about creation and a continued subsistence of an Aadhaar ecosystem, which is going to be far bigger than Aadhaar. Before making Aadhaar mandatory, as a nation, we need to work on cyber security, which we have not. My personal belief is that with Aadhaar, India is sitting on a volcano, which is about to burst. You have no clue of what kind of potential ramifications Aadhaar breaches will have on people’s privacy, private lives and digital existence in the coming times,” said advocate Pavan Duggal, who specialises in cyber law.

“Aadhaar will constitute, according to me, India’s critical information infrastructure and if that stands compromised, India’s position as a nation will be thoroughly jeopardised. There’s no running away from the fact that Aadhaar is now a reality, so let’s start identifying loopholes and plug them before making it mandatory,” Duggal added.

Concurring with Duggal, another lawyer, who is involved in the Aadhaar case in the Supreme Court, said, on condition of anonymity, that making Aadhaar mandatory would also give rise to problems of exclusion on the basis of inability of a person to link their Aadhaar with a specific service due to any reason. 

“If a person is unable to link his Aadhaar with bank account or mobile number for any reason, it is as good as them not having Aadhaar. A lot of time Aadhaar linking does not happen for a host of reasons, including biometric failure,” the lawyer said.
A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is set to hear a batch of petitions on Aadhaar-related matters in November.

Schemes/Services for which Aadhaar number, authentication or enrolment is required
Linking of Aadhaar with Mobile Number
Department: Department of Telecommunications
Last date: February 6, 2018

Linking of Aadhaar with PAN card
Department: Ministry of Finance
Last date: December 31, 2017

Central Sector Scholarship Scheme for College and University Students
Department: Ministry of Human Resource Development
Last Date: December 31, 2017

Opening of post office accounts
Department: Ministry of Finance
Last date: December 31, 2017

Opening of National Savings Certificate
Department: Ministry of Finance
Last Date: December 31, 2017

Opening of Public Provident Fund
Department: Ministry of Finance
Last Date: December 31, 2017

Opening of Kisan Vikas Patra
Department: Ministry of Finance
Last Date: December 31, 2017

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
Department: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Last Date: December 31, 2017

Employees’ Pension Scheme
Department: Ministry of Labour and Employment
Last Date: December 31, 2017

Availing crop insurance under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
Department: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
Last Date: December 31, 2017

To receive benefits under Incentive Scheme for providing employment to Persons with Disabilities in the Private Sector
Department: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
Last Date: October 31, 2017

Note: The list is not exhaustive


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