AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 13201 - Private players face glitches in Aadhaar authentication and e-KYC

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

Friday, April 6, 2018

13201 - Private players face glitches in Aadhaar authentication and e-KYC - Business Standard

Private players face glitches in Aadhaar authentication and e-KYC

Aadhaar Authentication User Agencies and their sub-bodies are basically companies which have a direct connection to the UIDAI servers

Mayank Jain

Last Updated at April 5, 2018 02:42 IST

For payments and telecom industry, the introduction of Aadhaar based know-your-customer was a godsend. With just people’s thumbprints, companies have managed to enroll millions of users for services ranging from banking, mobile connection to digital lending. However, last few weeks haven’t been smooth for private companies depending on Aadhaar for their business as they claim that authentication services have been patchy while some even alleged that it’s been shut for certain players completely.

E-KYCs and Aadhaar authentication are of crucial importance to these fin-tech companies as the recent RBI instructions require strict KYCs for these players to function in the market. For instance, wallets such as Paytm and Mobikwik require full KYC to allow their customers to load money or transfer it to other users. However, the services aren’t going through smoothly for many players.

For instance, Jitendra Gupta, founder of CitrusPay took to Twitter on Wednesday and said that authentication services are stopped for all Authentication User Agencies (AUAs) and sub-AUAs.

“Aadhaar stopped all KUA and sub-KUA to do validations!! Suddenly, all fintech businesses banking on Aadhar left scrambling!! India stack story will crumble very soon if it continues in this manner,” Gupta tweeted.

Aadhaar Authentication User Agencies and their sub-bodies are basically companies which have a direct connection to the UIDAI servers and they enable Aadhaar-based authentication in a yes/no format or e-KYCs for their clients. Some of the AUAs like Khosla Labs allow clients like payment and fintech companies to integrate Aadhaar in their systems and do faster transactions.

He confirmed this over a phone conversation to Business Standard and said that companies are facing this issue for the last two days at least and the services aren’t likely to resume any time soon for those who have been blocked.

“From the last two days, we have been witnessing this problem that all the e-kycs and authentication has been stopped for private companies from the UIDAI's end. This is apparently because the case is sub-judice in the Supreme Court and to achieve one end, they have created chaos for the industry,” Gupta said, adding that their AUA informed them of the restriction and that it will be restarted only after the ongoing case in the Supreme Court is decided. “This is not something that they want to give in writing so the instructions arrived only orally and there's no clarity when it will be resumed.”

Even as UIDAI didn’t respond to Business Standard’s calls and emails seeking comment, a senior payments industry body professional confirmed this and said that the glitches in authentication are being faced intermittently by multiple players.

“Many players are talking about it and trying to get it resolved with the UIDAI but the stand is that they don’t want to allow a lot of companies access to these services anymore because there are risks of data leak and on some pretext, any company can start gathering Aadhaar information from people which is not good for the case,” he said.

At the same time, these claims match with the official data on the UIDAI website which shows that e-KYCs came down heavily from 1.28 crore transactions a day on average to just 515 on March 24, 2 on March 28 and 3 on April 1. However, the data for April 3 for which complete outage is being claimed wasn’t available on the site. Even authentication numbers saw volatility as authentication numbers dropped to just 15,000 on March 30 as compared to 3.75 crore authentications a day on average.

However, Business Standard learned through companies that not all operators are facing this problem as only some KUAs are blocking this service. For instance, Mobikwik confirmed that e-KYC is working fine for them even as they are faced with confusion among users over the recent SC order staying linking of Aadhaar with non-essential services.

“A lot of users are hesitant in sharing their Aadhaar or biometric details. Our teams have been working overtime to educate users about the importance of KYC and ensure that increasing number of our users complete the KYC verification,” said Upasana Taku, Co-founder, Mobikwik.

Even as companies figure out alternatives to Aadhaar based services in the absence of glitch-free authentication and e-KYC, payments industry is looking for clarity from the government in terms of their stand on the use of Aadhaar for fin-tech, according to Naveen Surya, Chairman, Payments Council of India.

“Aadhaar authentication and eKYC is beneficial for fintech but changing policies and practices are causing unnecessary disruption,” Surya said. “Also, paper KYC in one year has to be done for everyone even if e-KYC is done in the first year for customer acquisition. This should be removed else it’s adding to cost and processes instead of reducing.”

First Published: Thu, April 05 2018. 02:41 IST