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 12, 2017

12483 - Stop this project for 'unlimited government' now! - Deccan Herald


Gopal Krishna Dec 9 2017, 23:47 IST

                                      Gopal Krishna



Stop this project for 'unlimited government' now!
Gopal Krishna

Biometric databases have given birth to gnawing present and future civil liberties and civil rights concerns. The history of biometric profiling, going back to at least the 19th century, is a history of violence and repression. A stolen password can be changed, stolen fingerprints cannot be.

Biometric identification is an invitation to violence. A motorist in Germany had a finger chopped off by thieves seeking to steal his exotic car, which used a fingerprint reader instead of a door-lock. As The Economist noted in 2010 in an article on the fallibility of biometric identification, "Keeping evildoers out is no simple screening matter", contrary to the belief of the proponents of the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) for the Aadhaar numbers.

As per Section 2(g) of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, "biometric information means photograph, fingerprint, iris scan, or such other biological attributes of an individual as may be specified by regulations." The reference to "such other biological attributes" makes it clear that voice sample and DNA profiling may come under its ambit in the future. It is noteworthy that the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2015, aimed at regulating the use of DNA analysis and to establish a National DNA Data Bank. The definition of biometric information in the Aadhaar Act seems to make the proposed Human DNA Profiling Bill redundant.

It is germane to recall that the Task Force for preparation of Policy Document on Identity and Access Management under the National e-Governance Programme (NeGP), which submitted a report in April 2007 that revealed Project Unique ID (UID) "to create a central database of resident information and assign a Unique Identification number to each such residents in the country, was already under implementation long before the arrival of Nandan Nilekani in July 2009 as chairman of the UIDAI. This report defined biometrics and made one of the earliest references to "biometric authentication".

Biometric identification and authentication is the foundation on which the entire CIDR of Aadhaar project has been erected. But proponents of the project feign ignorance about a five-year study, Biometric Recognition: Challenges and Opportunities, published in September 2010 by the National Research Council in Washington, DC, which concluded that biometric identification and recognition is "inherently fallible" like the discredited science of Eugenics.

Indians under US surveillance
Former electronics and IT secretary J Satyanarayana, currently part-time chairman of UIDAI, was a member of the Task Force, which included 34 other members, including 11 technology solutions providers, mostly giant US corporations.
Asked about surveillance by the US National Security Agency on Indians by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, Satyanarayana said, "We have been assured that whatever data has been gathered by them for surveillance relates only to metadata which is, the origin of the message and the receiving point, the destination and the route through which it has gone, but not the actual content itself we expressed that any incursion into the content will not be tolerated..."

In effect, the Government of India has formally told the US government that India has no problem if American agencies conduct surveillance of Indian citizens for metadata. It must be remembered that the idea of UID was incubated in Satyanarayana's very department. Contract agreements accessed through RTI reveal unequivocally that sensitive personal data of Indians have been handed over to transnational private companies like Accenture, Safran Group and Ernst & Young.

No recourse for individuals
The powers of the UIDAI include the power of "omitting and deactivating an Aadhaar number and information relating thereto..." Read with the government's directives to make Aadhaar mandatory for any and every government service or benefit, in effect, the Aadhaar Act has empowered the central government to cause "civil death"  or the loss of all civil rights -- of anyone for any reason.

Worse, as per Section 47(1) of the Aadhaar Act, "No court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act, save on a complaint made by the Authority or any officer or person authorised by it." This takes away the right of citizens to move any court for the enforcement of the rights conferred by Articles 14, 21 and 22 of the Constitution. In effect, individuals have no recourse to the law on matters relating to the misuse or abuse of one's Aadhaar by the UIDAI or any other agency, unless the UIDAI itself lodges a complaint!

Such provisions were forced on citizens illegally, of course only during Emergency, when a Presidential Order declared that "the right of any person (including a foreigner) to move any court for the enforcement of the rights conferred by Articles 14, 21 and 22 of the Constitution and all proceedings pending in any court for the enforcement of the above-mentioned rights shall remain suspended "
That order came in handy for Sanjay Gandhi to assault Indian citizens, using State machinery and authority to forcibly sterilise thousands of men during Emergency. The Indian resident is once again under attack through indiscriminate biometric profiling. Such a project, which is aimed at creating an unlimited government, not limited by the Constitution, must be abandoned forthwith in the supreme public interest.

(The writer is a public policy and law
researcher and convener of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties)