4457 - Stop enrolment shivir of illegitimate and illegal biometric UID/Aadhaar number for media persons in public interest

From: Gopal Krishna <krishnagreen@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 12:34:17 +0530

Subject: [Arkitect India] Stop enrolment shivir of illegitimate and

illegal biometric UID/Aadhaar number for media persons in public

interest [9 Attachments]

To:

Hon'ble Chairman,

Press Council of India (PCI),

Soochna Bhavan,

Lodhi Road,

New Delhi-110003

Hon'ble Members

PCI

New Delhi

Subject- Stop enrolment shivir of illegitimate and illegal biometric

UID/Aadhaar number for media persons in public interest

Sir,

This is to seek your urgent intervention to stop the proposed enrolment

shivir for biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar number for media

persons, we wish to seek immediate intervention to stop enrolment of

UID/Aadhaar number in public interest. This initiative is unethical and

violates the code of ethics for journalists.

On behalf of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), we wish to inform

you about our shock and disbelief at the plan of Delhi Journalists

Association (DJA) and Indraprastha Press Club of India with support from

the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to organise a shivir for media people

to enrol for biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar number which is

illegitimate and illegal.

We submit that IMA's support for an exercise like biometric identification

is akin to German Medical Association's decision to support medical

atrocities committed during the 1930s and 1940s while under Nazi rule for

which they have apologized after 75 years. IMA may have to regret in the

same way. ( Reference: The Lancet, Volume 380, Issue 9852, Page 1472, 27

October 2012)

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2961842-X/fulltext

We submit that Dr Mohan Rao, Professor at the Centre of Social Medicine and

Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has underlined that

"the claim that the Unique Identification project will facilitate the

delivery of basic health services is dishonest."

www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2824/stories/20111202282401900.htm

It is noteworthy that aadhaar/UID is a biometric identifier number of 12

digits and not a card. Such schemes have been abandoned by countries like

Australia, UK, France and China because it raised concerns about

indiscriminate surveillance.

We submit that history is testimony to misuse of such systems by despotic

forces. German rulers used IBM Hollerith D-11 card sorting machine in the

census of the country in 1933 and since there was a provision for

identifying race and ethnicity, the Nazi rulers with the help of IBM could

conveniently count and identify the Jews whom they savagely butchered out

of racial hatred. One, therefore, cannot rule out the possibility of this

power being misused by persons in power to access private details such as

religious, racial, caste or even political profiling from Aadhaar data base

to serve undemocratic, illegal and unethical purposes for use in ways that

may pose a risk to the life or security of the person concerned. It is

noteworthy that when quizzed on how they would prevent Aadhaar data base

from falling in wrong hands or enabling unscrupulous politicians to misuse

for their benefit and against the interest of the Indian people, Nandan

Nilakeni who eulogizes Aadhaar number as “ubiquitous” and even advised

people to “tattoo it somewhere,” lest they should forget it, was caught

napping.”

We submit that it is admitted that Governments of France and South Korea

and transnational companies like Gemalto, IBM, L-1 Identity Solutions,

Microsoft and Pfizer are part of the World Bank’s eTransform Initiative

(ETI).

We submit that what is least talked about is that the E-identity and

UID/aadhaar related projects are part of World Bank's eTransform

Initiativeformally launched on April 23, 2010 and Interpol's

e-identity database project. This along with the then Union Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee's announcement in January 2011 for voluntarily seeking

fullfledged  Financial Sector Assessment Programme by IMF and the

WorldBank merits attention of the legislatures. In April, 2010 L-1

Identity Solutions Inc. (which has now been purchased by biometric technology

company Safran group), a French corporation signed a Memorandum of

Understanding (MoU) with the World Bank as part of the launch of the

initiative at a World Bank Spring Meeting event attended by many developing

country Ministers of Finance and Communications. It claimed that this

collaborative relationship with the World Bank is meant to improve the way

governments in developing countries deliver services to citizens as part of

the launch of the World Bank eTransform Initiative (ETI). The World Bank's

ETI seeks to leverage Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to

build a knowledge sharing network that helps governments of developing

nations to leverage the best practices of practitioners like L-1 and others

to improve the delivery of social and economic services. The knowledge

sharing network will focus on areas such as electronic Identification

(eID), e-Procurement, e-Health and e-Education; areas vital to promoting

the participation of citizens in democratic processes, such as voting, and

helping undocumented citizens get access to health and welfare programmes.

The World Bank is currently funding 14 projects related to e-government and

e-ID around the world. Are citizens supposed to believe that the World Bank

Group is working to ensure that India's national interest and its citizens'

rights are protected?

It must be noted that Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has

rejected the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 which was

meant to give legal status to Unique Identification Authority of India

(UIDAI) in its report to the Parliament dated December 13, 2011. The report

is available at 164.100.47.134/lsscommittee/Finance/42%20Report.pdf.

In November, 2012 a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice and Justice J

Chelameshwar issued notices to Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission and

the UIDAI on a PIL by a retired judge of Karnataka High Court K S

Puttaswamy who said the government was bypassing Parliament by going ahead

with  the distribution of UID numbers. The PIL has relied on the letter

sent to Prime Minister by Justice Rama Jois, former Supreme Court judge and

member of Rajya Sabha questioning the legality of UIDAI.

We submit that a coalition of people who have become beneficiaries in the

possible profits from biometric database have taken media persons for a

ride. It may be noted that publications like The Statesman, Tehelka, The

Hindu, Hard News, Samayantar, Teesari Duniya, Frontline, Rediff.com,

Samkalin Tapman, Chauthi Duniya, Public Agenda, Prabhat Khabar and Pratham Pravakata under Shri Ram Bahadur Rai have attempted to expose this

coalition.

We submit that there has been instances where 3.57 crore signatures against

Aadhaar/UID were submitted to the Prime Minister referring to the

implementation of UID/Aadhaar as ‘subversion of democracy’.

In a significant development following rigorous deliberations, an Indian

development support organization founded in 1960, Indo-Global Social

Service Society (IGSSS) has disassociated itself from UID Number project

which was being undertaken under Mission Convergence in Delhi.

Withdrawal of IGSSS that works in 21 states of the country across four core

areas India: Sustainable Livelihood, Youth Development, Disaster Risk

Reduction, and Urban Poverty merits the attention of all the states and

civil society organisations especially those who are unwittingly involved

in the UID Number enrolment process.

In its withdrawal letter IGSSS said, “we will not be able to continue to do

UID enrolment, as we discussed in the meeting of 10th May 2011.” It added,

it is taking step because `it’s hosted under the rubric of UNDP’s *“Innovation

Support for Social Protection:** **Institutionalizing Conditional Cash

Transfers**“** [Award ID: 00049804, Project: 00061073; Confer: Output 1,

Target 1.2 (a) & Output 3 (a), (b)]*. In fact we had no clue of this until

recently when we searched the web and got this information.’

It is clear that both Mission Convergence and UIDAI have been hiding these

crucial facts with ulterior motives. The letter reads, “IGSSS like many

other leading civil society groups and individuals are opposed to

conditional cash transfers and the UID will be used to dictate it.”

We wish to inform you as to why all Freedom Loving Indians should oppose

UID/ Aadhaar, National Population Register (NPR), National Intelligence

Grid (NATGRID) and National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC)?

They do so because:

It is a threat to privacy, civil liberties, federalism, national security,

sovereignty and constitution

It is without democratic, parliamentary, legal and constitutional sanction

It facilitates emergence of a Database, Surveillance State and Property

based Democracy

It is anti-poor and anti-citizen as it dismantles Public Distribution

System and other existing social service entitlements

It promotes outsourcing of governance

It is fraught with dangers of genocide and communal crisis

It is guided by undemocratic international financial institutions and

defence policies of other nuclear weapon holding countries

The collection of biometric data is an act violation of human rights and

turns citizens into subjects and treats them worse than prisoners.

There is an imminent danger from biometric technology companies

indiscriminately collecting biometric data like finger print, iris scan

It compromises citizens’ rights of present and future generations

It is a boondoggle, an unnecessary and wasteful project for citizens as it

transfers public money to private parties

Taking cognisance of the uncalled for linking of employees provident fund

with UID being opposed by the trade Unions, the report of Parliamentary

Standing Committee (PSC) on Finance that rejected the National

Identification Authority of India (NIDAI) Bill, 2010 for giving post dated

legal mandate to Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI);

Recalling the Statement of Concern on Unique Identification (UID) Number/

Aadhaar Number project and its inter-linkages with the proposed

legislations and institutional machinery issued by 17 eminent citizens like

Justice VR Krishna Iyer, Prof Romila Thapar, Late K.G.Kannabiran, Kavita

Srivastava, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Late S.R.Sankaran, Deep Joshi, Prof.

Upendra Baxi, Prof. Uma Chakravarthi, Shohini Ghosh, Amar Kanwar, Bezwada Wilson, Trilochan Sastry, Prof. Jagdish Chhokar, Shabnam Hashmi and Justice A.P.Shah dated September 28, 2011 seeking halting of the project;

The Statement of Concern is available at

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/NO2UID/

We wish to draw your attention towards the article by Shri Arun Jaitley,

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha made available in Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi

and English that raises grave concerns about UID/aadhaar. The article is

at:

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/my-call-detail-records-and-a-citizen-s-right-to-privacy-arun-jaitley-355448

We wish to draw your attention towards 'Why the UID project poses a danger

to our sovereignty' available at

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-why-the-uid-project-poses-a-danger-to-our-sovereignty/20130702.htm

*

*We wish to submit that 'Legislatures fail to save citizens from their

biometric profiling by World Bank Group and its partners' (

http://www.toxicswatch.org/2013/05/legislatures-fail-to-save-citizens-from.html

*)

*

We wish to draw your attention criticism of DJA, IPCI असंवैधानिक और

अलोकतांत्रिक आधार कार्ड बनवाने के लिए शिविर लगातीं कूपमंडूक पत्रकार

यूनियनें at* *

http://bhadas4media.com/article-comment/13503-2013-08-02-18-35-39.html*

** *

We wish to share how biometric UID/Aadhaar entails "नागरिक की निजता पर सबसे

बड़ा डाका"

http://visfot.com/index.php/current-affairs/9582-adhar-card-story-gopal-krishna-1307.html

*

*Kindly find attached the notification appointing NN, Chairman, Infosys Ltd

as Chairman UIDAI, the RTI reply refusing information about UID enrolment

of Prime Minister, cabinet ministers and others, RTI reply denying

information about the contracts given to foreign companies that work with

intelligence agencies of France and USA and World Bank Policy paper 'Use of

biometric technology in developing countries'. Central Information

Commission is seized with the issue of denial of information and had heard

the matter on June 24, 2013.

*

*We demand immediate audit of the activities of the UID Authority of India

since January 2009 till date;

We recommend to all the State governments, government departments and

voluntary organisations to boycott the UID related projects with immediate

effect.

We will be happy to share all the relevant documents in this regard. The

report of the Parliamentary Committee is attached and other relevant

documents in English and Hindi attached for your perusal and consideration.

We demand that enrolment shivir of illegitimate, illegal and questionable

scheme like biometric UID/Aadhaar number for media persons in public

interest.

thanks & regards

Gopal Krishna

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)

Mb: 09818089660

E-mail:gopalkrishna1715@gmail.com

Cc

Office bearers and members of Indian Journalists Union (IJU)

Office bearers and members of Indian Medical association (IMA)

Office bearers and members of NUJ

Office bearers and members of DJA

2013/8/2 Palash Biswas <palashbiswaskl@gmail.com>

दिल्ली के मीडियाकर्मियों के लिए आधार कार्ड और वोटर कार्ड बनवाने हेतु शिविर[

Created on Friday, 02 August 2013 17:18 Written by B4M

दिल्ली जर्नलिस्ट्स एसोसिएशन (डीजेए) और इंद्रप्रस्थ प्रेस क्लब आफ इंडिया

(आईपीसी) इंडियन मेडिकल एसोसिएशन (आईएमए) के सहयोग से 4 और 5 अगस्त, 2013

(रविवार और सोमवार) को मीडियाकर्मियों के लिए आधार कार्ड और मतदाता पहचान पत्र

बनाने हेतु एक शिविर का आयोजन कर रहा है. यह शिविर आइटीओ स्थित इंडियन मेडिकल

एसोसिएशन के मुख्यालय में दोनों दिन सुबह दस बजे से शाम पांच बजे तक लगाया

जाएगा.

<http://goog_999829382> <http://goog_999829382>

http://www.bhadas4media.com/state/delhi/13486-2013-08-02-11-48-13.html

2885 - Unique ID is dangerous for you; it should be scrapped

Unique ID is dangerous for you; it should be scrapped

Dec 18, 2012

By Yogi Aggarwal

The government’s controversial scheme of giving a unique 12-digit identification (ID) number to identify a resident (and not necessarily a citizen) of this country got a massive leg up with the announcement of the direct cash transfers programme. The UID is the technology anchor of the programme, the first of many to come.  It is to be linked to payments under MGNREGA, subsidised foodgrain under the public distribution system (PDS), and many others.

Some news reports on the UID, or the Aadhaar scheme, indicate which way it may be leading us. The Hindustan Times of 28 November states: “The Delhi government is considering making UID numbers mandatory for all public services from next year.”  A report from Nagpur dated 4 December says: “The state government has made it clear to all schools that unless all staff and students are enrolled in the Unique identification scheme, no salaries will be paid from next financial year.” The Hindu reported on 20 November: “A government order says that school children who are not enrolled in the Aadhaar scheme by 31 March 2013 will not be given benefits, including scholarships, grants, and various certificates.”

This is only the beginning of the story. Even though UID is not currently mandatory, it is increasingly being made so and banks, the labour ministry and even the railways are planning to incorporate it to provide services. An approach paper on privacy done for the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) says: “As more and more agencies of the government sign on to the UID project, the UID number will become the common thread that links all those databases together … There is tremendous scope for… commercial exploitation of this information without the consent/knowledge of the individual.”

The dangers of the state using the UID to collate information from different databases such as those of banks, the tax authorities, hospitals, passport offices, driving licences and others are increasing. In December 2009, the National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid), established within the home ministry, will funnel information about us from 21 databases to 11 security agencies. In April 2011, rules framed under the Information Technology Act explained that those holding “sensitive personal data,”  which includes “physical, physiological and mental health condition”, “sexual orientation”, “biometric information” and so on would be are required to share it with the government when asked.

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance (SCoF), chaired by Yashwant  Sinha, in its December 2011 report on the UID had several objections to the scheme. While the committee “categorically conveyed their unacceptability of the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010,” it was damning when it said that, “The UID scheme has been conceptualised with no clarity of purpose and leaving many things to be sorted out during the course of its implementation; and is being implemented in a directionless way with a lot of confusion.”

The SCoF raises serious questions about the government beginning Aadhaar enrolments without parliament’s approval of the Bill, and comes down heavily on the government for proceeding without the “enactment of a national data protection law” – an essential prerequisite “for any law that deals with large-scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases.”

The report also questions the use of biometrics to prove the unique identity of individuals. It notes that “the scheme is full of uncertainty in technology” and is built upon “untested, unreliable technology.” It notes that under Indian conditions, where most people, especially farmers, do manual work which scars or damages fingerprints, the “estimated failure of biometrics is expected to be as high as 15 percent”. So instead of a foolproof method of verifying a person’s uniqueness, it becomes a dangerous sham.

The SCoF report states that “there are lessons to be learnt from the global experience” which the ministry has “ignored completely”. The UK shelved its identity cards project for a number of reasons, including the huge costs involved, untested and unsafe technology, and risk to security of citizens. It adds that the London School of Economics report on the UK Identity Project inter-alia states that “…..identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems……the risk of failure in the current proposals is, therefore, magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal rights of individuals”.

In the US, though there is no comparable identity scheme, the social security number (SSN) plays a similar role. Until the early 2000s, it was closely guarded by the state and employers. Then the SSNs of individuals were exposed to a wide array of private players, which identity thieves used to access bank accounts, credit accounts, utilities records and other sources of personal information. In 2006, the Government Accountability Office noted that “over a one-year period, nearly 10 million people — or 4.6 percent of the adult US population — discovered that they were victims of some form of identity theft, translating into estimated losses exceeding $50 billion.”

In India, the dangers are manifold. The UIDAI has subcontracted its entire enrolment process to private companies, unlike the census, which is usually conducted by government employees. Thousands of private agents, acting as enrollers, data-collectors, and data-transporters, will have the potential to make a quick buck by selling UID data in electronic form to market players. This is especially risky, since information about biometric details, bank account numbers, and telephone numbers of potential customers can have a huge market demand.

The dangers of the state using the UID to collate information from different databases such as those of banks, the tax authorities, hospitals, passport offices, driving licences and others are increasing. PTI

As the government rushes ahead with plans to make the UID more ubiquitous, pushing ahead with its spread, the opposition to it is also growing. On 28 November 2012, civil rights activists issued a statement demanding that “the project be halted, a feasibility study be done covering all aspects of this issue, experts be tasked with studying its constitutionality, the law on privacy be urgently worked on (this will affect matters way beyond the UID project), a cost- benefit analysis be done and a public, informed debate be conducted before any such major change be brought in.”

This statement was issued by luminaries including former Supreme Court Justice VR Krishna Iyer, historian Romila Thapar, NAC member Aruna Roy, Upendra Baxi, jurist and former vice-chancellor of the Universities of Surat and Delhi, and many others. They raised 10 questions about the UID.

These included: (1) the need for UID, when 15 other identity proofs exist; (2) why Indian citizens should be profiled based on biometric data when even prisoners are not; (3) how the UID project poses a threat to the privacy rights of citizens; (4) the implications of an extraordinary dependence on corporations, many of them companies with close links to foreign intelligence agencies;  (5) linking of UID with voter ID, land titles, National Intelligence Grid, National Population Register (NPR), National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), etc, as an assault on the rights of citizens; (6) the lack of guarantees on the use of the database for communal and ethnic targeting of minorities and political dissidents.

With the parliamentary committee having rubbished the UID scheme and shown how it is inimical to national interest and individual privacy, the government should drop the idea instead of continuing with its folly.

1762 - Press Release: Aadhaar: How the Nation is Deceived - Written by Sri Jijeesh P.B.

 Justice. V R Krishna Iyer Releases a book against Aadhaar

Former Supreme Court judge Hon”ble Justice V R Krishna Iyer here released a book “AADHAAR; How a Nation is Deceived” on 3rd Nov 2011, Thursday, 4PM at his residence by handing over the first copy to Adv. Sebastian Paul, ex-MP. The book authored by Sri. Jijeesh P B, executive member of the socio-environmental organisation Greenpeople is a devastating critique of the Unique ID project of the government of India, pet named Aadhaar. Speaking on the occasion Justice V R Krishna Iyer said that “the project AADHAAR should not be implemented for it amounts to an assault on privacy and basic rights of individuals and is suited only for fascist nations. 

Every individual has some secrets to keep and personal informations should not be made a public property”. Adv. Sebastian Paul, ex MP, said that the project leaves innumerable questions unanswered and a informed debate inside and outside the parliament is urgently required. The book comes with an insightful Foreword by Dr. Usha Ramanathan, renowned scholar and independent researcher in jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights and the South Asia Editor of the Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal). The book is published by Greenpeople.
           
The Rs. 1,50,000crore project envisaged to issue a 12 digit Unique ID number to each and every resident in India, as an antidote to the corruption and leakage that is endemic to our system of service delivery, was rolled out without any prior-launching studies or cost-benefit analysis. The project was launched without legal backing and the parliament is yet to pass a law in this regard. In the mean while 2 years has passed and the UIDAI is enrolling people and collecting data including biometric information (ten finger prints, Iris scans and photograph) and entering into contracts with even foreign firms notorious for their proximity to the CIA and Homeland Security without a legal framework to protect the privacy and rights of the individuals concerned and secure storage of data. 

Moreover globally, the science of ‘biometrics’ is being questioned and most of the countries in the world are abandoning similar projects (including the US, UK, France, Canada and China). The global biometric industry which is gradually losing business are eyeing on the Indian market. 

And with a technocrat at the helm of the UIDAI (with cabinet rank!) the project is on a roll. That every resident should be transparent to the state is an anti-democratic idea, but the common reach of technology, and the corporatizing of public programming, has together lulled populations into an unsuspecting complaisance. There seldom had any informed public debate or media coverage on the subject.

                                                                                                          

As Dr. Usha Ramanathan says in the Foreword “Young Jijeesh’s effort at taking on the UID project is of enormous importance. It is timely, and if it breaks through the walls of silence that the Mr Nandan Nilekani has worked to erect, it will have done our democracy a good turn. There are many questions that many of us have been asking which lie unanswered in the cupboards of callousness and unresponsiveness that has become state practice. Jijeesh’s is the voice of a concerned youth who is irked into independent speech by the arrogance of the project. More power to him”.
 

Speaking at the function Sri Kadathy Shaji, well known writer and joint secretary of Greenpeople, said that the state should not be allowed to open a file on each and every citizen of the country.  

The programme held at Sadgamaya was attended by Sri. Azees Kunnappilly, President Greenpeople, Adv. Aby Pukkunel, Secretary, Greenpeople, Sri. Kadathy Shaji, Dr. Sreedhar Koothattukulam, Sri. Jayan P A, Sri. Akhilesh P J, Sri. Manoj S Nair, Sri. Deepu AS, Smt. Sunitha M Vijayan, Sri. Dineesh, Sri. Denit P Kurian and Sri. Sreejith, all executive members, Greenpeople.

Greenpeople
3rd Nov 2011
greenpeople.greenpeople@gmail.com
9895114134