Opponents say Aadhaar is world’s most powerful state surveillance tool
An index finger impression is used to withdraw money from a personal bank account with an Aadhaar card © AFP
Kiran Stacey in New Delhi 14 HOURS AGO
Nearly a decade ago, India launched what the World Bank called the “world’s most sophisticated digital identity scheme”, to give its 1.3bn citizens a unique biometric ID card in an effort to overhaul its complex and leaky welfare system.
Today, defying predictions that it could never complete such a project, almost every adult in the country has an “Aadhaar” card. But instead of using the scheme only to combat benefit fraud, New Delhi is now trying to use it to clamp down on tax evasion and even terrorism, triggering a legal challenge that has gone all the way to the highest court.
Lawyers for about 30 different plaintiffs have recently been arguing in the Supreme Court that Aadhaar violates a fundamental right to privacy. They have already prompted a reinterpretation of the Indian constitution, and within weeks they could spell the beginning of the end for the ambitious project.
Shyam Divan, one of the lawyers challenging the scheme, says: “What Aadhaar appears to do is shake the balance and put the government in such a dominant position that we are unlikely to remain a democratic, open society.”
When the scheme was launched in 2009, Aadhaar — meaning “foundation” in Hindi — was touted as an answer to several fundamental problems.
Primarily, it would help eliminate the number of people pretending to be someone else in order to claim their benefits. Government figures show 40 per cent of those who are supposed to receive food rations do not, while that figure is 65 per cent for wage guarantees — though not all of this is down to identity theft.
Second, the cards would give millions of Indians a verified, portable identity. This would allow them to open bank accounts, move easily from state to state and take out insurance.
This is big data mixed with big brother
Reetika Khera, economics professor, Indian Institute of Technology
Third, the cards would allow benefit claimants to shop around for their government-subsidised rations, helping cut fraud by shopkeepers.
“Around 10 to 20 per cent of people didn’t have IDs before, and many people had other not very good IDs, like ration cards, which don’t identify each family member,” says Nandan Nilekani, the billionaire founder of IT group Infosys and first chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, which administers the programme.
“This has been a huge, huge step forward.”
Since Mr Nilekani left the project, it has mushroomed in scale. Ministers have recently decreed that Aadhaar cards should be linked to everything from personal bank accounts to driving licences, mobile phones, and train ticket purchases.
New Delhi says the extension will help tackle tax evasion by creating a real-time database of citizens’ spending and saving habits. But its opponents say it is creating the world’s most powerful government surveillance tool.
“This is big data mixed with big brother,” says Reetika Khera, an economics professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.
Last year, activists chalked up their first success when a nine-judge panel ruled that the constitution allowed for a fundamental right to privacy — a judgment that has implications for everything from abortion to gay rights.
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Now Mr Divan and his colleagues are in their final submissions to the court, arguing that Aadhaar violates the constitution, both in its concept and in the way the law was drafted and passed. They also say that much of what is being driven through now is not in the act.
They argue that the scheme allows the government to spy on citizens by monitoring their movements and spending patterns in real time — in Mr Divan’s words, “an electronic leash by which you tether a citizen from birth”.
They also say the data being collected are not secure — a view bolstered by a revelationby the Tribune newspaper that a reporter had been able to buy access to the database for Rs500 ($8).
They add that problems with data collection, faulty machinery and patchy internet mean it is harder to claim welfare, not easier, and that many valid claimants are being excluded as a result.
An Indian visitor (R) receives cash from a bank employee after withdrawing money from his bank account with his Aadhaar card during a Digi Dhan Mela, held to promote digital payment, in Hyderabad © AFP
Another challenge is the proposal that Aadhaar cards must be used to buy mobile phones and open bank accounts, which opponents say effectively prevents people from choosing not to join the Aadhaar system.
The government has yet to make its legal response, but it has previously said the fundamental right to privacy was “esoteric and elitist”, and contrary to the interests of the masses.
Narendra Modi, prime minister, said recently: “Today, because of Aadhaar . . .. middlemen have lost jobs, so have dishonest people.”
Mr Nilekani is similarly scornful of the anti-Aadhaar arguments. “The notion that before Aadhaar we were in some pastoral paradise is complete bunkum. Half the people were not getting their rations,” he says.
“This is a small group of activists trying to make a noise because they want to influence the Supreme Court.”
Within weeks, India will find out whether the Supreme Court has been listening.
Concerns raised over system
The date of birth on Rukam Pal’s Aadhaar identity card is wrong.
This should be an easy problem to resolve, but when Mr Pal went to get a new card, he found that his fingerprints had been burnt so many times in the course of his job as an ironer that the system could no longer recognise him.
Barfi, his wife who goes by a single name, says the problem means he is unable to claim his government-issued social pension. Under the welfare scheme he would only be able to claim Rs300 a month, but this would be enough, says Barfi, to help pay for medical treatment for his breathing problems.
Activists say Mr Pal is one of millions of people who have been excluded from the Aadhaar system. They say two women in the state of Jharkhand have now died because they were unable to claim their benefits.
Those who designed the Aadhaar system say it was always meant to be supplemented by a manual back-up system for cases such as Mr Pal’s.
But according to Barfi, shopkeepers are not offering any verification system other than Aadhaar. “There is no alternative,” she says.
