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

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

12457 - Aadhaar Articles Dated 4th December 2017



Economic Times
According to the government's mandate, you have to link your Aadhaar with various key documents and services to continue using them. The deadlines for doing so are fast approaching, therefore, if you haven't done it yet, it's time to get a move on. Read on to find out how to go about the linking process.







The Hindu
Many senior citizens visiting banks for providing life certificate for pension and linking their Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts have been put to a lot of hardship. They complained that there was no common rule for banks and each of them was following whatever pattern their head offices had decided ...






Moneycontrol.com
Aadhaar issuing authority UIDAI's funny response to 'Ivanka Trump getting an Aadhaar' meme ... Comedian Jose Covaco recently cracked a joke by posting a video about Ivanka coming to India and getting her Aadhaar done, which went viral on Twitter, whereas she was actually here to attend the ...






NDTV
Biometrics-related information associated with Aadhaar card can be locked. The UIDAI or Unique Identification Authority of India, which issues the 12-digit Unique Identity Number (UID) as well as Aadhaar card, enables Aadhaar holders to lock and unlock the biometrics data fed into the Aadhaar system.






MediaNama.com
First things first: Starting January 1st 2018, Mobile operators are expected to roll our an IVR based means of linking Aadhaar numbers to mobile numbers, for those people who have their mobile number registered with Aadhaar. The process, outlined by the Department of Telecom, via a notice (PDF) on ...



Times Now
It is a cruel state of affairs when a citizen is forced to enroll in the Aadhaar program and then is thrown in a fix because she has no fingers for biometric scans. This is the story of 65-year-old Sajida Begum who has been living in the Leprosy Hospital on Magadi Road in Bengaluru. The New Indian ...



ETCIO.com
Citizens hesitant to link Aadhaar details with e-commerce, digital wallets In the wake of recent reports on Aadhaar data breach by various sources, results from a survey revealed that a majority of the respondents were uncomfortable in using their Aadhaar accounts to access e-commerce accounts or ...






Times Now
Having an Aadhaar card has become almost as important as a bodily limb considering that there are a multitude of provisions we have to link our Aadhaar to. Critics have called this invasive, detrimental to one's right to privacy and hazardous to national security. While the UIDAI cries itself blue in the ...






Daily Pioneer
The Government will give 3-6 months to link the biometric identifier Aadhaar with PAN in case the apex court rules in its favour, after which it may cancel all PANs that have not been linked, a senior official has said. The cancellation will weed out all duplicate PANs and make benami transactions void, the ...






MediaNama.com
Privacy International, an international organization which advocates the right to privacy, has raised concerns and criticized IndiaStack, Aadhaar eKYC, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). To recap, IndiaStack is a set of software APIs which includes Aadhaar Auth, eKYC, eSign, DigiLocker, GST ...






OpenGov Asia
UMANG provides seamless integration with the national biometric ID, Aadhaar and Digilocker, which provides a dedicated cloud storage space to Indian citizens for digital issuance and verification of official documents & certificates. According to the UMANG website, the app will soon be integrated with ...






Mid-Day
An assistant police inspector (API) from Vasai police station sought help from a man at an ATM in the area to link his Aadhaar and bank account details, but got robbed of Rs 39,000 within minutes, on Saturday. According to police sources, when API Vasant Ganpat Vayantande inserted his ATM card in ...






Economic Times
During his tenure, Infosys' top line grew six fold to $3 billion. Nilekani left Infosys in 2009 to lead India's unique identification project, Aadhaar, at the request of the then prime minister Manmohan Singh. As fate would have it, Nilekani made a surprise re-entry as the non-executive chairman of Infosys in ...






Economic Times
It is possible to link the subscriber's Aadhaar number using the mobile app. * The subscriber can also reset the profile password by entering PRAN and date of birth to generate an OTP for authentication. (The content on this page is courtesy Centre for Investment Education and Learning (CIEL).






The Hindu
Aadhaar to Universal Account Number (UAN) number linkage was also discussed. Special focus was given on Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY), a scheme under which the government would pay 8.33% of the total employee provident and pension fund for companies that have been ...






The Indian Express
The process was to be linked with the Aadhaar number of the farmers to prevent any leakage. Government servants, elected representatives, directors of sugar mills and other cooperative institutions and those who have paid service tax were deemed ineligible for the scheme. This was to be second loan ...






eGov Magazine | Elets
Digital payment solution PayPhi has started the digital payment solutions for HP Gas cylinders where consumers can make payments using Aadhaar, UPI or BharatQR. “Paying for LPG cylinders with cash has for long been a pain point for consumers, gas agencies, and also for the OMCs.






Hindu Business Line
Additoonally, NSDL e-Governance is a registrar for the Unique Identification Authority of India, which issues Aadhaar number to residents. All these businesses are a gold mine of data and can propel these companies into the future of the AI ecosystem. BSE has tied up with Switzerland's algorithmic data ...






Livemint
Apart from this, party leaders point out, Gandhi has his task cut out in shaping the Congress' stand on key policy issues, including the rollout of the goods and services tax (GST), women's reservation and Aadhaar. “The immediate challenge will of course be the outcome of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh ...






Times of India
Even some of us have lost our important documents, including aadhaar and ration card. Even the birth and educational certificates of our children have been washed away by the waves," said fisherman Thomas Kaliparambil, whose house was inundated after unprecedented sea incursion in Chellanam.