AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 12804 - UIDAI says Aadhaar an identification, not profiling tool

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

Monday, January 29, 2018

12804 - UIDAI says Aadhaar an identification, not profiling tool - Economic Times

UIDAI says Aadhaar an identification, not profiling tool

PTI|

Jan 29, 2018, 06.47 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The UIDAI today sought to allay fears over data protection and privacy issues around the 12 digit biometric identifier, asserting that Aadhaar is an identification not a profiling tool.

It also stressed that Aadhaar data is governed by strong laws.

Fielding questions on Twitter in a live chat, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said that Aadhaar is based on minimum information and biometrics which is "least intrusive".

To a specific query on whether UIDAI will go for DNA profiling in future, Pandey said that there were no such plans.

"We take fingerprint, IrisBSE 1.45 % and photo...We have no plans to take something like DNA... photo, fingerprint and Iris is good enough for de-duplication, generating Aadhaar and to authenticate any person," he said.

The UIDAI chief dismissed concerns that linking of various information with Aadhaar could lead to government monitoring, surveillance or possible misuse

Aadhaar

✔

@UIDAI

.@AimlessAvian Please note that Aadhaar is an identifier. It is not a profiling tool. #AskAadhaar

11:42 PM - Jan 28, 2018

17 17 Replies
21 21 Retweets
50 50 likes

"When you give Aadhaar number in bank... UIDAI doesn't know about your bank account. Bank gives us your Aadhaar number and fingerprint and UIDAI is a matching service. It says a yes or no, or we send a limited eKYC," he explained.

The government does not get any information about the resident from the system, he said.

UIDAI further tweeted, "Aadhaar is an identifier not a profiling tool".

During the question and answer session that lasted for over 1.5 hours, Pandey took over 20 queries that ranged from privacy concerns around Aadhaar to benefits of the biometric identifier for residents, and from linking of Aadhaar to mobile SIMs (subscriber identity module) to moving the enrolment centres to government offices and banks.

To another question, he said bank accounts are "property of citizens" and their linkage with Aadhaar number should not raise fears that government will one day freeze such accounts.

Maintaining that introduction of Virtual ID and limited eKYC had nothing to do with data leak stories pertaining to Aadhaar, Pandey said they were conceptualised for strengthening the privacy system.

The UIDAI recently announced a new concept of "Virtual ID' which Aadhaar-card holder can generate from its website and give for various purposes, including SIM verification, instead of sharing the actual 12-digit biometric ID. The Virtual ID, a random 16-digit number, will give the users the option of not sharing their Aadhaar number at the time of authentication.

During the live chat today, Pandey said that since some people feared that information residing in multiple places could be linked despite it being prohibited under Aadhaar Act, the latest feature will give people the choice to mask their Aadhaar number

"It has nothing to do with data leak story. I have said that in the last seven years, there has been no data leak from UIDAI," he said.

Pandey said that Aadhaar was protected by strong laws, and that Aadhaar Act is "based on the premise that privacy is a fundamental right".

Citing the various Sections of Aadhaar Act he said that biometric data given to UIDAI cannot be shared without an individual's permission, and that doing so is punishable. "No one can aggregate data and do profiling," he pointed out.