AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 12845 - Picture Intelligence Unit – Aadhaar Based Surveillance By Foreign Firms

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

Sunday, February 4, 2018

12845 - Picture Intelligence Unit – Aadhaar Based Surveillance By Foreign Firms

http://gginews.in/picture-intelligence-unit-aadhaar-based-surveillance-foreign-firms/

Picture Intelligence Unit – Aadhaar Based Surveillance By Foreign Firms

Unknown to most Indians, the biometrics they surrender to Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) during enrolment for Aadhaar is being used for surveillance. According to documents in possession of GGI News this surveillance is being carried out through technology provided by foreign companies – many with direct links to their country’s intelligence agencies.

By Shelley Kasli

January 17, 2018

In 2015, a surveillance unit comprising real time facial recognition, number plate recognition and vehicle speed violation system was setup in Gujarat. At the landmark ‘go-live’ event of the Picture Intelligence Unit (PIU) at Surat Police Headquarters in July 2015, Japanese Nippon Electric Company (NEC) completed successful deployment of their Face Recognition System (FRS) as part of the Smart Cities project for Surat City Police (Gujarat).

Anandi Ben Patel, then Chief Minister of Gujarat with Koichiro Koide, Managing Director, NEC India inaugurating the landmark deployment at the ‘go-live’ event of the Picture Intelligence Unit (PIU) at Surat Police Headquarters in the city.

As part of the project 5,000 CCTV cameras were to be installed at 500 places in the city. NEC’s NeoFace face recognition technology including NeoFace Watch works with these live CCTV cameras deployed at critical locations in the city while NeoFace Reveal is used for forensic criminal investigation using recorded videos, still face images and sketches of suspects.

NeoFace Watch is a face recognition platform for real-time or post-event surveillance, search, identification and ID verification. NeoFace Reveal is a software solution for forensic investigation that provides law enforcement and crime laboratory agencies with the ability to enhance poor quality latent face images, search against their mugshot databases, and locate potential suspects, while NeoFace Watch integrates with existing video surveillance systems and matches faces in real-time against a watch list of individuals to trigger an alert.

The PIU system will also assimilate databases from other states across India, making it a first-of-its-kind video analytics and facial recognition system in the country. Besides integrating the photograph database, the PIU system will also integrate sound analytics — which will detect gunshots or glass breaking and generate an alarm.

NEC’s biometrics division in Bangalore NEC Biometrics Excellence Center is engaged with UIDAI for ID cards, using multiple technologies for face, fingerprint and iris recognition. NEC was also shortlisted by UIDAI to bring in added solutions like ‘scanning of blood veins to rule out duplication’. It is by far the biggest such surveillance project in the world. This Face Recognition System and Forensic Criminal Investigation System offer Surat police department the technology for real-time intelligence gathering & surveillance of citizens.

Documents available with GGI News reveal NEC is also working on Aadhaar based surveillance for Banking and Financial sector. NEC’s Face Recognition System (FRS) designed for surveillance of critical infrastructure for Banks and Financial Institutions could be deployed at Data Centres, Branch Offices, Key Buildings, Cash Vaults, Locker Rooms & ATMs etc. Existing or new IP CCTV camera feeds are utilized to capture faces of the people walking in front of cameras that are matched in real-time with Aadhaar database to generate alerts.

As part of the Microsoft’s vision to transform cities into Digital Smart Cities, a partnership was initiated between Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and Microsoft CityNext to develop Surat as a Smart City. One aspect of the Microsoft CityNext vision is to provide a solution for public safety organizations to connect disparate data systems, share real-time information and leverage data analysis models to create a Command & Control station. NEC is part of this Microsoft CityNext initiative. Using Big Data, Internet and eGovernance, CityNext envisions creating a Command & Control Centre as a model of development and progress for other cities to follow.

Following Gujarat’s lead a Picture Intelligence Unit was to be setup in Maharashtra as well. Almost 6,000 hi-tech CCTV cameras were to be deployed in 1,472 locations throughout Mumbai as part of the Mumbai City Surveillance Project (MCSP). The state government now plans to rope in private and public establishments such as schools, hospitals, malls, jewellery stores and cooperative housing societies to tap into their CCTV camera feeds using its own network.

Devendra Fadnavis at the launch of Mumbai City Surveillance Project.

A consortium led by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) implemented the project. L&T is positioning itself as one of the driving forces in India’s Smart City Program for different solutions including Surveillance Systems for which it has partnered with iOmniscient, both of which are part of Microsoft CityNext project.

NEC has also conducted testing an intelligent video surveillance system using facial recognition technologies with the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). The test was conducted for two months last year at Central Park, New Delhi. NEC deployed closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras at Central Park and surrounding areas for monitoring the area from a control room. The company’s video surveillance system performs real-time matching of people entering the park against the NDMC’s watch list of preregistered individuals.

NEC’s Face Recognition System is also being used for surveillance at religious events. Andhra Pradesh state government deployed NEC’s FRS for surveillance at Krishna Pushkaram festival giving it access to thousands of CCTV surveillance camera systems scanning around 50 million pilgrims who came to attend the festival.

In 1984, Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Casey stated that the espionage activities of certain Japanese computer companies posed a direct threat to the security of the United States. One of the companies mentioned was Japanese NEC. Casey stated the predatory practices of NEC threatened the stability of the U.S. computer industry and urged semiconductor and computer manufacturers to sever their relationships with these companies.

A number of governments use non-government affiliated organizations to gather intelligence and provide cover for intelligence operatives. These activities are used to conceal government involvement in these organizations and present them as purely private entities to cover their intelligence operations.

The Intelligence Threat Handbook published by Interagency OPSEC Support Staff that provide operational security to U.S. government departments and agencies by providing technical guidance and assistance for the protection of U.S operations states that the Japanese have mounted a comprehensive economic espionage and economic intelligence collection effort directed against the United States. Because Japan has a very small government intelligence organization, most intelligence is collected by Japanese companies in coordination with the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

Major Japanese multinational corporations such as NEC, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Matsushita have large corporate intelligence organizations that collect political and economic intelligence. The quasi-official Japanese External Trade Organization (JETRO) has also been used as an intelligence asset, collecting information and even supporting espionage activities. The Japanese have used HUMINT sources within U.S. corporations, have bribed corporate employees to purchase proprietary data, and have used Japanese graduate students to collect information from universities and research institutes. It is believed that 85 to 90 percent of intelligence collected by the Japanese government and Japanese industry is economic intelligence, much of it based on proprietary data.

WikiLeaks

✔@wikileaks

Has the CIA already stolen India's #Aadhaar database? http://gginews.in/cia-spies-access-aadhaar-database/ … #modi

1:09 PM - Aug 25, 2017

How CIA Spies Access India's Biometric Aadhaar Database | GGI News

Read UIDAI and Cross Match’s reply to this story and our response to them here Foreign Firms Given Access To Your Unencrypted Aadhaar Data. Our international readers can read this story in French...

gginews.in

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Not just NEC, there are numerous other foreign firms directly connected to the intelligence community that have been certified by UIDAI and awarded contracts for Aadhaar project. One such company is CrossMatch, exposed in the secret documents from the ExpressLane project published as part of the Wikileaks Vault 7 projects. As reported by GGI News,CrossMatch has been used for the cyber operations the CIA conducts against liaison services — which includes among many others the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Cross Match was one of the first suppliers of biometric devices certified by UIDAI for Aadhaar program.

Was NEC and CrossMatch vetted by Indian intelligence agencies before being awarded such delicate projects related to the security of India? Are Indian intelligence agencies aware that under the guise of offering technology what types of covert operations are being conducted by these companies on unsuspecting Indians?

Since its inception UIDAI has claimed that Aadhaar is only for welfare although a mounting body of evidence shows how biometrics taken from Indian citizens is being used for mapping, tracking and surveillance by foreign spy agencies that were contracted to implement the project. Experts have shown concern about these surveillance systems of foreign firms with working relationship with intelligence adopted by Indian police departments and other agencies that show a blatant disregard and colossal ignorance on part of the Indian Government with regards to National Security.