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

Saturday, March 24, 2018

13085 - Aadhaar safety: Where is UIDAI's 13-feet high, 5-feet thick wall? - Business Today

Aadhaar safety: Where is UIDAI's 13-feet high, 5-feet thick wall?

 BusinessToday.In   New Delhi     Last Updated: March 23, 2018  | 19:11 IST
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If you are worried about the security of your Aadhaar data, here is some news for you. Your biometric data is stored in such a system that it will take for a fastest computer in the world more than the life of the universe to hack it; this is what UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told the Supreme Court on Thursday. That is not all.


The complex where these systems are kept or protected has a 13-feet high and five feet thick walls, Attorney General KK Venugopal told the apex court hearing a number of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. In last two days, two top government officials - Ajay Bhushan Pandey, KK Venugopal - have explained the technology and structure that have been put in place to protect the sensitive data. Does the UIDAI data centre really have a 13 feet high and five feet thick wall?

UIDAI DATA CENTRES

The UIDAI has two data centres, one at Bengaluru in Karnataka and another at Manesar in Haryana. The Bangalore data centre is the city's first blast, flood and earthquake-proof building. The centre, which was constructed by state-owned Engineers India at a cost of Rs 116 crore, is spread over 6,245 sqm and has a storage capacity of 6 peta bytes with 4,000 servers. The building is blast proof with category 'C' rating. It has a 500-mm-thick wall. The home ministry had sanctioned a 162-member CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) squad to guard the highly sensitive data centre.

The Manesar facility is a state-of-the-art, energy efficient, captive green data centre as per global standards and guidelines, according to former UIDAI DG RS Sharma. The data centre is designed as per seismic zone-IV compliance requirements. The Manesar Data Centre houses a building to accommodate UIDAI Biometric Centre of Competence or UBCC and National Training Facilities of UIDAI. The foundation stone for this Data Centre was laid by former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in 2013.

AADHAAR SECURITY

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the UIDAI CEO to give presentation to explain the Aadhaar security system. The Court asked the Aadhaar CEO to address concerns such as surveillance, data security and exclusion of some people from receiving government benefits in case of authentication. The petitioners, challenging the Aadhaar, had earlier argued that the biometric collection from 2010 to 2016 was illegal and invalid.

Explaining the security system of the Aadhaar, UIDAI CEO said that the entire data gets encrypted, even the fastest system in the world can't breach it. However, the bench said that it gets encrypted when it reaches you, but what about the collection centre where it could be captured by a private party. On this point, AB Pandey said that UIDAI did not share biometric details with anyone and the moment 'the resident presses the save key, entire data gets encrypted by the 2048-bit key'.

On authentication and foreign developed software, the UIDAI chief told the court that the agency has bought data matching software from the world's top three companies and stored on UIDAI's servers. The details saved on these servers are not shared with the software-providers, claimed AB Pandey. To make his point, Pandey said that even banks use such software but they don't share their details with software developers.
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