Nailing Us Down for Profit
There is an urgency to give corporates access to the UID system so that it goes back to the original purpose of the project: to provide a means by which every individual can be identified across databases.
Illustration by Tanmoy Chakraborty.
The September 26, 2018, judgment of the Supreme Court was unequivocal: the Aadhaar Act, 2016, where it enabled companies (bodies corporate) and individuals to seek authentication from the Unique Identification Authority of India, or UIDAI, database was "unconstitutional". Making "Aadhaar compulsory in the name of checking money laundering or black money is grossly disproportionate" and "unconstitutional". The linking of the UID number with mobile phones was "disproportionate and unreasonable state compulsion"; the circular that required the linking was "unconstitutional".
Yet, in just a few months, the government has introduced a bill in Parliament to amend the Aadhaar Act, 2016, to make all these uses 'legal' again. 'Legal', of course, cannot override unconstitutional, but clearly the government has no patience with such niceties.
Why this urgency to give corporates access to the UID system?
It goes back to the original purpose of the project: to provide a means by which every individual can be identified across databases. The personal information so gathered is the key resource on which the digital economy is to be built. This requires the assassination of privacy and the propagation of the idea that 'consent is broken' anyway, so consent can be rendered irrelevant. Data protection, in this world view, is not about protecting people but about working out how personal information can be used to create and run businesses.
By now, it is also clear that the UID project could never have survived on the UID alone. Almost a decade ago, its founder-chairman and technocrat Nandan Nilekani explained this to us: roti, kapda aur makaan, he said, is now passé; hereafter, it is the bank account, Aadhaar and mobile number. This was to later become the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity. The building of businesses using personal data as a resource needs digital footprints-hence these three numbers.
The UID, on its own, would serve very little purpose. Biometrics do not work for the old, the very young, many in the working classes. Biometric failure is in large numbers-the Economic Survey 2016-2017 cited authentication failure rates as high as 49 per cent in Jharkhand and 37 per cent in Rajasthan; it's no wonder that business wants no part of that use of the UID database. Also, as was acknowledged by the Watal Committee on Digital Payments (December 2016), "biometric-based verification requires availability of internet and high-quality machines capable of capturing biometric details of customers" making its use "contingent". So they asked that OTP replace biometrics. The amendments, now in the Rajya Sabha, still want to use the UID number and the database, but through "off-line verification", not "biometric authentication"-which has been left for the poor to navigate. This explains the project's swift shifts in language: from KYC (Know Your Citizen) to KYR (Know Your Resident) to finally rest at KYC (Know Your Customer).
Jostling for space with the Aadhaar Amendment Bill is the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019. Rushed through the Lok Sabha, it begins with an averment that the bill is to establish the identity of certain categories of persons connected with criminal matters. In fact, it goes beyond its stated purpose. Clause 13 requires every DNA lab undertaking a DNA procedure to be accredited, and every such lab "shall share DNA prepared by it with the National DNA Data Bank and the Regional Data Bank in such manner as maybe specified by regulation" (Clause 25). This is way beyond the province of criminal law, and the Schedule reveals the full expanse of the intended coverage: testing for paternity/ maternity, issues relating to surrogacy, immigration or emigration, establishment of individual identity and a host of other areas such as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and Domestic Violence Act. The law does not spell out whose DNA will be collected-victim, accused or just any person.
During a meeting at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad, addressed by the minister for science and technology, the secretary, Department of Biotechnology, was asked about linking Aadhaar with DNA profiles. "It will be decided at the time of framing rules," she said. We have reason to worry.
Usha Ramanathan is an independent legal researcher
