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

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

13821 - AADHAAR HELPLINE NUMBER SLITHERS INTO INDIAN MOBILES, UIDAI DENIES RESPONSIBILITY - First Post


The issue came to light when a hacker took to Twitter about the UIDAI contact listed on his phone.

This morning, Indian citizens were a bit confused, the UIDAI number had slithered into their phonebooks by default and there is a lot of hullaballoo on who’s to blame. There still is.
This comes just a couple of days after the TRAI chairman RS Shrama gave out his Aadhaar number on Twitter challenging all those who question Aadhaar data collection practices, to prove how exactly does simply having the number can be misused to cause someone harm.

The immediate response was a shower of tweets with his number mobile number, photo, residential address, date of birth, even chat threads using the information, putting the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in question.



UIDAI Number auto-saved on phones. Image: tech2/Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee
The UIDAI continues to be questioned. The French hacker who goes by the name of Elliot Anderson brought to people’s notice that the UIDAI’s number was being saved by default on people’s mobile phones.
“Many people, with a different provider, with and without an #Aadhaar card, with and without the mAadhaar app installed, noticed that your phone number is predefined in their contact list by default and so without their knowledge. Can you explain why?” Anderson tweeted.



Hi @UIDAI,

Many people, with different provider, with and without an #Aadhaar card, with and without the mAadhaar app installed, noticed that your phone number is predefined in their contact list by default and so without their knowledge. Can you explain why?

Regards,
According to various reports, the number is mostly on Android phones, but when we checked, both the iOS and Android users in our team had the number saved on their phonebooks.
So we made a call, of course, and upon dialing the number, which is 1800-300-1947, it is notified to be invalid. However, the number 1947, when dialed welcomes you to the Aadhaar contact center.
This raises many questions.
Who put the number on our phones?
If UIDAI is responsible, then how do they have access to enter our telephone contacts? If they added information onto our phones, does it also mean that they can collect information from it?
If UIDAI put the number, then why did they put a wrong number?
And finally, why is the correct number 1947? They probably thought it’d be cool to play on a number that stands for independence in India. They never knew they'd start sounding more like 1984, which stands for evil and totalitarianism.
One might wonder that, if you do not have an Aadhaar, it shouldn’t be on your phone. But apparently, it is. According to a tweet by a user Rachita, she doesn’t even have an Aadhaar, but the number is on her phone.




Why is this on my phone? I don't even have an #Aadhaar. @UIDAI @ceo_uidai
The news publication Business Standard tried to contact UIDAI but did not hear from them.
UIDAI released a statement via Twitter on the default inclusion of UIDAI’s number saying that it was an “outdated & invalid Toll-free no. 1800-300-1947.” On the contrary, if you pull out your own Aadhaar card from your wallet, flip it over and check the toll-free number at the bottom left, it is in fact ‘1800-300-1947.’


Aadhaar toll-free number as mentioned on an Aadhaar card. Image: Tech2

They also denied asking or communicating with “any manufacturer or service provider for providing any such facility whatsoever.” They further clarified that the correct number is 1947, and has been functional for more than two years.
UIDAI claims that some “vested interest are trying to create unwarranted confusion in the public” and they stress on how they aren’t responsible for the inclusion of the number in our phones.



#PressStatement In the wake of some media reports on default inclusion of UIDAI’s outdated & invalid Toll free no. 1800-300-1947 in contact list of Android phones... 1/n


 · 3 Aug

... It is clarified that, UIDAI has not asked or communicated to any manufacturer or service provider for providing any such facility whatsoever. 2/n


It is emphasised that the said 18003001947 is not a valid UIDAI Toll free number and some vested interest are trying to create unwarranted confusion in the public. 3/n


 · 3 Aug

Our valid Toll free number is 1947 which is functional for more than the last  two years. 4/5


UIDAI has reiterated that it  has not asked or advised anyone including any telecom service providers or mobile manufacturers or Android to include  18003001947 or 1947 in the default list of public service numbers.
#### 5/5
If that is true, it is a further matter of concern for us, because we don’t really have an answer for who is responsible for listing the contact on our phones.
There is a speculation, according to the Business Standard report that “the mobile manufacturers must have found the helpline number to be useful as the emergency number” and hence you find it listed in your phones, but this seems like an odd explanation because none of the common emergency numbers like women's helpline or fire emergency are there on the phones.

The report further explains that the government would have had to issue some guidelines to phone manufacturers to download this specific number.

“A phone company is not the one making decisions as to what to load and what not to,” said Arnav Gupta, co-founder at Coding Blocks, a programming and software training institute.
If this is true, is UIDAI lying? We don’t know.


The only conclusions we can draw here are that, UIDAI is not helping itself, after already being scrutinized for Aadhaar, and that our data, of course, isn't safe.