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 31, 2018

13155 - UIDAI, and its CEO, are Yet to Say Anything That Can Help us Trust Them - The Wire


UIDAI, and its CEO, are Yet to Say Anything That Can Help us Trust Them

With only one biometric authentication, and five failed attempts, Ajay Bhushan Pandey's authentication history for five months doesn't exactly spark more faith in the UID system.



An unsecure application programming interface (API) operated by a state-run utility service provider is leaking Aadhaar details, according to a report published on Saturday. Illustration credit: Karnika Kohli


29/MAR/2018

Dear Mr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey,

Over the last five years, I have received multiple requests – some polite, some forceful, but mostly threatening – to hand over my data to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the organisation you head. Each time, I have most respectfully declined.

Trusting any third-party with items of importance is a task best handled with care. It also involves ascertaining that the organisation that you are handing over your data to is absolutely capable of taking good care of it.

It seems to me, from your public statements and Aadhaar authentication history – portions of which you made public in the ongoing Supreme Court hearings – that it is likely you might not be able to do so. Let me explain.

First up, finding and eliminating bugs in the Aadhaar system – which can lead to critical data leaks – is not one of your priorities.


Anand V@iam_anandv
12 Aug
Replying to @iam_anandv and 2 others

Hopefully as the series goes on, KUAs will be forced to follow standard security practices. Always happy to work with you on solutions.


CEO UIDAI
✔@ceo_uidai

UIDAI is working on a policy to enable security experts to report issues in a legal and safe manner.
1:42 AM - Aug 13, 2017
12
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India has pushed and cajoled over a billion people into signing up, and there is no official public policy on how concerned security researchers can report potential vulnerabilities. This is akin to saying that ‘all is well, there are no problems because nobody has told us we have an issue’.

And yet, you say that hacking threats (from domestic and foreign entities) give you sleepless nights. Perhaps a bug-reporting policy would give you an extra couple of hours each night? “There are attempts almost every day to hack [the] Aadhaar system, but none has succeeded,” you said recently.

No one has succeeded? The real question is whether you would tell us if an attempt had been made, given your controversial and often misleading history of denials.

Indeed, you deny too much. In the past month, you said that the UIDAI has “trashed” the ZDNet report and “refuted” the Aadhaar data leak by a Delhi researcher.


CEO UIDAI
✔@ceo_uidai

UIDAI trashes ZDNet report, refutes Aadhaar data leak claim by Delhi researcher 



UIDAI trashes ZDNet report, refutes Aadhaar data leak claim by Delhi researcher

“There is no truth in this story as there has been absolutely no breach of UIDAIs Aadhaar database. Aadhaar remains safe and secure,” UIDAI said.economictimes.indiatimes.com
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However, when you don’t say anything, it’s equally revealing. And there have been no public tweets denying The Tribune’s expose. I checked and checked, yet could not find any.

Moving on, you believe that the advent of Aadhaar and Aadhaar-linking cannot possibly result in any state or potentially hostile private entity constructing a 360-degree profile.


CEO UIDAI
✔@ceo_uidai
27 Apr
Replying to @dravirmani and 3 others

domain databases with Aadhaar name nos will remain federated/1


CEO UIDAI
✔@ceo_uidai

no database thus will have 360 degree view of any person/2
1:30 PM - Apr 27, 2017

See CEO UIDAI's other Tweets
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In the ongoing Supreme Court case, to prove this point, you made public your Aadhaar authentication history, but it actually revealed the following:

Between November 2017 to March 2018, you authenticated your Aadhaar identification a total of 26 times, of which five attempts failed. While it isn’t a good enough sample to derive any concrete conclusions, it’s more proof of how probabilistic Aadhaar is as an identification technology.

There’s a good chance that you currently hold three accounts in ICICI bank (bank accounts or credit cards), which are Aadhaar linked. It is possible to conclude that these are three distinct accounts, because the “UKC” fields are different, thus implying that these are different transactions and hence not the same account number (Linking one account number is usually a single transaction).



        A screenshot of Pandey’s authentication attempts.

You also have an IDFC account, which is curiously not Aadhaar-linked, since it failed once and there were no further attempts to link it again in the history.

While there is an Aadhaar-linked Vodafone postpaid SIM card in your name, you probably don’t have your insurance accounts linked with Aadhaar. There are probably no insurance policies linked with Aadhaar, since there were no attempts from AUAs which are insurance companies.

Unlike your predecessor, Nandan Nilekani, you don’t appear to use the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system as you enter your office and start a day’s work. If you did, there would be more authentication attempts recorded.
Also unlike the famous Matunga hotel in Mumbai, whose owner eats there – and hence first-hand knows the potential problems with the food cooked there – you don’t generally use biometric authentication (only once) and hence may find it difficult to empathise with the troubles facing some of India’s poorest and most vulnerable.

You are indeed a good bureaucrat who loves demos and follows up on progress methodically. And you certainly do spend time at work when there is a crisis.

I hope that I have demonstrated to you with the examples and analysis so far, why I find your proposal to hand over my data very unconvincing. Since you hold a doctorate in computer science, might I remind you of an old joke about what metadata can reveal about a person:

“I know you called your doctor, then your insurance company, then your doctor again, then two cancer treatment centers, then your ex-girlfriend, then your wife. But don’t worry, I have no idea what you talked about.”

Actually, jokes are redundant when your out-of-touch responses themselves generate laughs, as when you claimed that there were no privacy concerns with the Aadhaar ecosystem because the main database is behind “13 feet-high, five-feet thick walls”.

This is not looking good at all. If you can’t laugh at yourself, it may be difficult to handle the stress of all those hacking threats and take prompt action.

I sincerely hope that you consider my rejection to hand over my data in the right spirit. As a citizen of the country, whose tax money helps fund your organisation, we are all in this together – even if we don’t see eye to eye on about my private data and your capability to keep it safe.

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