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

Showing posts with label Rachna Kaira. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rachna Kaira. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

12977 - No March 31 deadline, mandatory Aadhaar linking postponed till SC's final verdict - News Minute


The extension for mandatory Aadhaar linking will not apply to availing services and subsidies.
Bringing temporary relief to Indian residents, the Supreme Court on Tuesday announced that the deadline for linking mobile numbers and bank accounts has been extended till the top court decides delivers its judgment on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar.

The extension does not apply to those availing social schemes such as MGNREGA.

This deadline also been extended for those who apply for passports.

The order came as senior counsel Arvind Datar, appearing for one of the petitioners, told the court that passport issuing authorities have made submission of Aadhaar mandatory for issuance of passports. At this point, Attorney General KK Venugopal sought to clarify that this requirement of Aadhaar was only for issuance of 'tatkal' passports. The court order also extended the deadline for the issuance of passports.

A five-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan passed the interim order.

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016 is a money bill of the Parliament of India.

It was passed on 11 March 2016 by the Lok Sabha.  
It provides legal backing to the Aadhaar unique identification number project. 

In court on Tuesday, former Finance Minister and advocate P Chidambaram argued that a Bill which was passed wrongly as a Money Bill should be struck down immediately as Federalism is the basic feature of Constitution. A Money Bill, unlike any other bill, can be passed by the Lok Sabha alone. 

This was part of the court’s final hearing in the matter of K S Puttaswamy vs Union of India, along with 28 other petitions. 
The current deadline for linking of bank accounts, mobile phone connections, and other services with Aadhaar was March 31, and this had been extended by the apex court on December 15 last year. 

In August 2017, the right to privacy was upheld unanimously by a nine-judge bench in 2017. Privacy and denial of rights due to Aadhaar are two of the major considerations of the Aadhaar project.

There are many privacy concerns around Aadhaar, after a story was published in The Tribune. The reporter, Rachna Khaira, stated that she paid Rs 500 through Paytm, and in 10 minutes "an 'agent' of the group running the racket created a 'gateway' for this correspondent and gave a login ID and password. You could enter any Aadhaar number in the portal, and instantly get all particulars that an individual may have submitted to the UIDAI.


With IANS inputs

Sunday, January 14, 2018

12744 - Aadhaar operator found charging 100% GST on services Will get the matter investigated soon, says DC - Tribune India

Posted at: Jan 13, 2018, 1:16 AM; last updated: Jan 13, 2018, 1:16 AM (IST)


Rachna Khaira
Tribune News Service
(Bhogpur) Jalandhar, Jan 12

An Aadhaar operator was found charging 100 per cent GST on the services without putting it on the official records at a market in Bhogpur. Despite strict directions issued by the UIDAI that the Aadhaar machines could only run from government offices, the machine was found being operated from a booth.

As per the government notification, the new enrolment and any upgrade for children from the age of 5 to 15 will be done free of cost. Also, the upgrade of any biometric data (in case of children) was to be charged at the rate of Rs 25 and the printout of the card at Rs 20.

However, the operator was found charging Rs 100 for every new enrolment at the spot. Also, she was found charging between Rs 50 and Rs 100 for the biometric upgrade and the printout of the Aadhaar card.

Refusing to reveal her name, the operator said though the fee for the new enrolment was Rs 25, she was charging Rs 25 as the GST.

“Apart from charging Rs 25 as fee, I am charging rest of the money as the GST charges,” said the operator, adding that she had to bear the cost of the printing as well.

Despite the UIDAI recently issuing a notification that the Aadhaar machines could only run from government offices, including post offices and banks, many operators could be seen flouting norms and running these from private places.

Sources claimed that since the machines could run without the GPS devices for up to 8 hours, the operators were even taking these to other districts to enroll new members. However, the District Food and Civil Supplies Controller (DFSC) Narinder Kumar claimed ignorance in the matter and said that he would get the claim checked by the technical team. The move was planned to prevent any malpractices in the Aadhaar programme which includes using any pirated software and also to stop these operators from charging exorbitantly from the public. In the absence of any check by the DFSC office, the operators were even found to be running these machines till late night from their homes and charging fee as per their discretion.

How do they dupe the public and charge extra? “Interestingly, these operators have planned a new modus operandi for this. While handing over the job receipt to someone, they cleverly tear the lower part of the paper which carries the fee details of the service. Also, the part contains the name of the operator and the place from where the card was made. Some of the operators in the district do not even put mobile numbers during the new enrolments.

This leaves a person helpless to lodge any complaint with the UIDAI about extra charges levied by the operator. A majority of the public remains unaware about the actual charges notified by the government and happily pay up to Rs 100 for the printing, which otherwise is for a mere Rs 20. Narinder Kumar said the operator had closed down his shop since the visit paid by The Tribune team. “We are keeping a check on the booth and will seize the machine once it will open again,” said Kumar.

The Deputy Commissioner said he would get the matter investigated soon.

12741 - Have an Aadhaar app on your phone? This online researcher hacked into it to raise serious security concerns - Times Now


Updated: Jan 12, 2018 | 21:09 IST | Mirror Now Digital


A French security researcher hacked into the official Aadhaar app on Android and revealed some serious flaws.  


Every day seems to start with a sunrise, a desire to stay bundled up under the blankets and of late, a fresh security concern regarding Aadhaar.

It was just days ago that The Tribune newspaper and its reporter Rachna Khaira exposed the leaks in the system and alleged that one billion numbers were available for a mere Rs. 500. That's not all - if a paltry sum of 300 rupees was paid, the buyer could also get a fresh Aadhaar card made with a number of their choice.


Now, a French security researcher hacked into the official Aadhaar app on Android and revealed some serious flaws.

Indiatimes reports that going by the name of Elliot Alderson, the white hacker drew attention to the fact that mAadhaar (the official Android app for Aadhaar) had poor security standards built in.

"It's super easy to get the password of the local database," he said.


Hi #Aadhaar ! Can we talk about the #BenefitsOfAadhaar for the #India population?

I quickly check your #android app on the #playstore and you have some security issues...It's super easy to get the password of the local database for example...




The #Aadhaar #android app is saving your biometric settings in a local database which is protected with a password. To generate the password they used a random number with 123456789 as seed and a hardcoded string db_password_123 

If true, "123456789" is literally the worst password anyone could keep, especially if they are tasked with protecting the biometric data of the largest democracy in the world.

What does this all mean? This is what this white hacker retweeted:


Just so that non-tech people don't understand, this means
1. Any decent tech person can *get* the encrypted Mobile Aadhaar PIN because the "password" is known.
2. All the person needs is to get access to your phone.
3. Your phone gone, Your Aadhaar gone. 
That's not all - the user also offered to show UIDAI how to bypass the protection mechanism you set up and run the Aadhaar Android app on a rooted phone. Read the thread below:


1. Hi @UIDAI and @KhoslaLabs ! Let me show you how to bypass the protection mechanism you set up and run the #Aadhaar #Android app on a rooted phone.
This is definitely worrying and hence, the Twitter user leaves a message for us:


Hi #Indian people! Please don't post online your #Aadhaar card. By reading the QR code with a QR code reader app on a #Aadhaar card found on Google images, I obtained the name, gender, birthday, personal address of the card holder.

Friday, January 12, 2018

12718 - Aadhaar: A lot of questions yet to be resolved - Deccan Chronicle


The writer is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist

Published
Jan 12, 2018, 3:26 am IST

Everyone in a village in Uttarakhand has the same birth date on their Aadhaar cards.

 In Rajasthan, in the PDS, exclusion because of fingerprint failure has been close to 36 per cent

As the date approaches for the Supreme Court to hear several petitions challenging the Aadhaar project, the government’s Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs the intrusive scheme, is becoming even more bizarre in its responses. The latest move is to file a criminal case against a reporter from a national newspaper for filing a story showing that it is possible to get access to the records of billion-plus people pressured to enrol in the scheme for just Rs 500.

The report revealed that “it took just Rs 500, paid through Paytm, and 10 minutes in which an ‘agent’ of the group running the racket created a ‘gateway’ for this correspondent and gave a login ID and password” for “any Aadhaar number in the portal, and instantly get all particulars that an individual may have submitted to the UIDAI, including name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email. What is more, The Tribune team paid another Rs 300, for which the agent provided ‘software’ that could facilitate the printing of the Aadhaar card after entering the Aadhaar number of any individual”.

This is just the latest of several instances where major faultlines in the Aadhaar scheme — which demands everything from mobile phone numbers to bank accounts and tax payments, health records, college admissions, pension schemes, mutual funds — have been revealed. Some 210 government websites and those of educational institutions displayed personal information along with UID numbers as recently as November 2017. UIDAI admitted this had happened, but said “that was not us”, the database is safe.

This is just one of many instances. In Rajasthan, in the PDS, exclusion because of fingerprint failure has been close to 36 per cent — which means that not even one person from 36 per cent of households are able to authenticate using their fingerprints. Jharkhand has witnessed deaths because the poorest have had difficulty linking their UID number with their ration card. Documents in the UIDAI archive from between 2009 and 2012 show that biometrics was still in an experimental phase. That biometrics are not working as hoped because biometric authentication requires the availability of Internet service and high-quality machines capable of capturing biometric details, making it contingent on these working.

This is not all. The failures multiply. In Maharashtra, loan waivers hits a roadblock as lakhs of farmers with the same account and Aadhaar numbers are listed. Everyone in a village in Uttarakhand has the same birth date on their Aadhaar cards. Underage girls who were rescued from brothels were sent back because their Aadhaar card showed them to be adults. In all these cases, the people implementing the scheme are distorting  the data to fill the number of cases they need. Yet there is no accountability. UIDAI merely reiterates that nothing is wrong.

However, in a supposed response to the rising public criticism, UIDAI this week introduced  the concept of a “Virtual ID”, which would be a random 16-digit number, which together with the user’s biometrics would give any authorised agency like a mobile phone company limited details like name, address and photograph, which are enough for any verification. This clever ploy does not meet the main objection to the Aadhaar project — of its intrusiveness.

To get the data of over a billion people, more than a million enumerators should be needed, as happens for the census that is conducted once every 10 years. This would require trained workers visiting each household and noting the details of each member. They would necessarily have to be government employees if responsibility is to be fixed. Instead, what has happened is that the work is contracted out to private firms, who break all the norms to get as many people as possible on their list. They would be prone to invent things, including putting many people on the same Aadhaar number or giving them all the same birth date.

If UIDAI was at all serious, it would conduct an investigation into which contractor was responsible for fudging the data, haul him up and expose him publicly. The responsibility and the criminal intent would be fixed. Instead, we have no idea why or how the data was fudged and the action taken against them.
Many such contractors could also be foreign companies with shady links to foreign intelligence agencies. The government needs to give an assurance to the people that their confidential data are not being whisked away to be analysed on foreign shores. Just who the various contractors are and the parts of the Aadhaar project they were assigned must be made public, and certainly before the Supreme Court — since these are after all not state secrets.

There is a further danger. The Internet and all the things stored on it is inherently porous. Governments and private hackers (let alone small-time crooks) are known to break into these closely-guarded spaces. Luckily so far, the information is put onto different computer databases — whether of each bank, or the passport office or health records or government tax records. 

Once all the information is in a single location, based on the Aadhaar number, it is possible for an intelligent hacker to collect the  vital data of anyone of consequence in the country.

Foreign companies like Facebook or Google are another matter. They already provide the Narendra Modi government the backing that keeps it in power. A recent report by Bloomberg noted that “India is arguably Facebook’s most important market ... with the nation recently edging out the US as the company’s biggest... Since his election, Modi’s Facebook followers have risen to 43 million, almost twice Trump’s count. “As Modi’s social media reach grew, his followers increasingly turned to Facebook and WhatsApp to target harassment campaigns against his political rivals. India has become a hotbed for fake news.” It is difficult to understand why the Narendra Modi government is pushing people into Aadhaar. Perhaps the backing of an organisation like Facebook is an important influence.



12707 - UIDAI introduces new two-layer security system to improve Aadhaar privacy - Economic Times

ET Bureau|
Updated: Jan 11, 2018, 06.22 AM IST

It will not possible to locate your aadhaar based on your virtual id. 

NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has introduced a system of virtual authentication for citizens enrolled on its database and limited the access available to service providers in a move aimed at allaying widespread concern over security breaches that have dogged the world's largest repository of citizen data. 

In one of the most significant security upgrades by the eightyear old agency, the UIDAI announced the creation of a "virtual ID" which can be used in lieu of the 12-digit Aadhaar number at the time of authentication for any service. 

The UIDAI has also limited access to stored personal information and mandated the use of unique tokens through which authenticating agencies can access required data. It claims that the measures will strengthen privacy and also prevent combining of databases linked to Aadhaar. 

ET was the first to report about the UIDAI plan to introduce virtual numbers to address security concerns in its November 20 edition last year. 

A top government official told ET that UIDAI has been working on this technology since July of 2016. "This is going to be one of the biggest innovations ever, people can change their virtual ID whenever they want or after every authentication or every 10 seconds." He added that this will silence most critics of Aadhaar. 

"The Aadhaar number being the permanent ID for life, there is need to provide a mechanism to ensure its continued use while optimally protecting the collection and storage in many databases," the UIDAI said in a notification on Wednesday while announcing the new measures. 

More Needed to be Done: Experts 

"The collection and storage of Aadhaar number by various entities has heightened privacy concerns," it stated. 

Under the new regime, for every Aadhaar number, the authority will issue a 16-digit virtual identity number which will be "temporary and revocable at any time." 

This virtual ID can be generated only by the individual Aadhaar holder and can be replaced by a new one after a minimum validity period. 

In addition, while some Authentication User Agencies (AUA) — categorised by the UIDAI as 'Global' — will have access to all the details or the e-KYC of a specific Aadhaar number, all other agencies will only have access to limited data through the virtual identity number. 

"So this is a very very significant thing and I think this is a great step forward," said Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of UIDAI, in an interview to television channel ET Now on Wednesday. 

Nilekani, widely regarded as the architect of Aadhaar, said that through these new security measures the possibility of the Aadhaar number being stored in many databases also goes away. 

It will make a huge difference in allaying the concerns and it really "eliminates all the arguments against Aadhaar," he told ET Now. 

Last week, Chandigarh-based daily The Tribune reported that demographic data from the Aadhaar database could be accessed for as little as Rs 500. The expose led to the UIDAI barring over 5,000 officials from accessing its portal through login ids and passwords. It also introduced biometric authentication for future access, as reported by ET on Tuesday. 

The widespread fear of misuse of demographic data is heightened by the fact that India still does not have a data protection legislation. The country's apex court is scheduled to resume its hearing on the validity of the Aadhaar scheme next week on January 17. 

Kamlesh Bajaj, former CEO of the Data Security Council of India said by limiting access to only those agencies mandated by law, the UIDAI has ensured that "someone will not be able to combine database. It's a positive development in my view and technologically feasible," he said 

EXPERT VIEWS 

Privacy experts and activists were of the view that more needs to be done to ensure foolproof security for critical personal information. 

The Bengaluru-based research organisation Centre for Internet and Society has suggested that all the Aadhaar seeding with all the existing databases should be revoked. "Until then, it is one step ahead and but not enough," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of CIS. 

To enable a speedy rollout of the new safety standards, the UIDAI plans to release the required technical updates by March 1, 2018 and all the Authentication agencies using the Aadhaar database will need to upgrade their systems latest by June 1, 2018. 

In its circular, UIDAI has also said that agencies not allowed to use or store the Aadhaar number should make changes inside their systems to replace Aadhaar number within their databases with UID Token. 

"Unless there is complete revocation, some database with Aadhaar numbers will still float around and secondly there is no reason why some data controllers should be trusted, the tokenisation should be implemented for everyone," said CIS's Abraham. 

The circular said that authentication using virtual ID will be performed in the same manner as the Aadhaar number and people can generate or retrieve their virtual numbers (in case they forget) at the UIDAI's resident portal, Aadhaar Enrolment Centers, or through the Aadhaar mobile application. 

In addition to the virtual numbers, UIDAI will also provide "unique tokens" to each agency against an Aadhaar number to ensure that they are to establish the uniqueness of beneficiaries in their database such as for distributing government subsidies under cooking gas or scholarships. 

Activists argue that most service providers — even digital ones — work with a paper ID card system. "They don't cross-check it with the UIDAI database. UIDAI is not issuing virtual ids for paper cards, and a new category of so called Global AUAs are exempted from using the virtual ids, so citizens are not protected almost anywhere that they need to use Aadhaar," said Kiran Jonnalagadda, co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, who said the change doesn't help enough to secure the ecosystem .. 

Read more at:

12698 - Introduction of virtual Aadhaar case of too little, too late: Experts - - Money Control


Just an attempt at plugging loopholes, say experts.


The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) introducing a virtual ID and limited KYC to address privacy and security concerns is a case of too little, too late, say experts.

The UIDAI, the agency that administers Aadhaar, said on Wednesday it will now let Aadhaar number holders have a virtual ID, which will come with an expiration data, mapped to the Aadhaar number. It also said only some entities will be allowed to store a person's Aadhaar number.

"This is just as attempt at plugging the loopholes in the system," said Ramanjit Singh Chima, India Policy Director at Internet advocacy group ‎Access Now. He called the proposal "complex and unworkable".

While the Aadhaar debate has many facets, the issue of citizen data leakage and privacy has been in the news since the past week after The Tribune reported that an anonymous seller was, through WhatsApp, offering access to the entire Aadhaar database for as low as Rs 500.

There have also been other reported instances of Aadhaar numbers being available publicly, but the UIDAI has always maintained that there is no threat to citizen data as long as their biometrics are safe and authorised agencies have access to their Aadhaar numbers.

While the UIDAI had been considering the use of virtual ID and tokens since some time, the new measures still do not completely eliminate the need to access the biometric database of citizen data for authentication, and would also require people to re-enroll for the measures to be effective, said Chima.

The new measures also do not specify what happens to Aadhaar numbers that have already been collected by different agencies and entities such as telecom companies, banks or educational institutions.

"What Aadhaar needs is an overhaul of its defective-by-design architecture and not stopgap measures. On January 9 another security researcher found issues in its Android app. It's not a constructive use of time and financial resources to force any inherently insecure system on the citizens," said technology lawyer Mishi Choudhary.

While the lack of a proper data protection and privacy framework has been a longstanding roadblock in deciding how stored data can be treated. There is currently a consultation underway to decide a data protection framework in India.
A large part of the Aadhaar debate is played out nearly every day on social media channels such as Twitter.

"#Aadhaar is here to stay! Happy that the @UIDAI has introduced virtual ID and limited KYC in the spirit of continuous innovation to enhance privacy and security," tweeted Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani after UIDAI's announcement.

There were also several contrarian views put out against the new features.

"We are all into this together as security breaches don't discriminate based on political affiliations. We need a nuanced discussion on law, policy, tech and impact on society for any project that has largescale implications and not Twitter yelling," added Choudhary.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

12684 - Why do Meghalaya People Want to be ‘Aadhar-less’? -North East India.Com





Updated: January 10 at 4:26 pm
The Aadhar Card has been the Central Government’s one of the most innovative moves (at least the Government says so). The Unique Identification Authority of India, or the UIDAI, has been working religiously to make people get registered under the process and has been perennially advancing to defy the benefits attached to it. Let’s first have a check on the benefits that the UIDAI claims but before that, DO NOT SHARE YOUR….


  1. Getting the Aadhaar card would make a person linked with small savings schemes such as Kisan Vikas Patra and PPF (Public Provident Fund) as well as bank accountsApplying for a PAN (Permanent Account Number) card now also requires quoting of Aadhaar. We get it, the tasks get easier than ever and might benefit the people that were not getting benefitted from the schemes.
  2. So this means, the unique identification number would get you connected with all of your sources where the money is involved, directly or indirectly. At the very same time, the government could lay an eagle-eye (or better we call it Modi-eye) on all of your money related, taxation issues. Fair enough!
  3. The other benefit is, the subsidy could be directly transferred to the bank account of the person that should avail it, under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). LPG subsidy is the core one!
  4. The government is also providing Digital Locker where the people can directly submit their documents on the government server and requires just the Unique Identification Number (UIN) for the purpose.
  5. Opening new bank accounts is now easier (I hope an SBI employee must be reading this) as the banks would take Aadhar Card as the Identity proof as well as the address proof and thus, minimizes the number of papers as the documents (Save paper, save forests).
Okay, there have been numerous benefits of having an Aadhar Card then why the people of Meghalaya, including the Meghalaya Chief Minister, don’t want to have an Aadhar Card?

SECURITY BREACH IS THE KEY FACTOR?
A few days back, one of the leading news journals of the Country, The Tribune featured story about the security breach in which The Tribune journalist Rachna Khaira somehow managed to ‘buy’ an access to the central UIDAI database for a mere amount of Rs 500 over Whatsapp, which clearly shows that UIDAI is not in control of the situation. But then, one of the deputy directors of UIDAI took the charge to amend the situation and filed an FIR against the journalist. Because, hey! showing the flaws of UIDAI is an offense under the section 47 of Aadhar Act, which says that only UIDAI can find the flaws in UIDAI, and only UIDAI can register an FIR against UIDAI. That’s so nothing lesser than ‘only God can judge me, and I am the damn God’.



Satish Acharya explains the bright side of Aadhar breach!
Notably, there was a design flaw in Aadhar Mapper which tells the government to transfer the subsidies through DBT. Airtel (I still can’t figure out if it was by the motive or not) used the Aadhar Mapper and became the default bank of DBT. As per the reports, the subsidy amount of 55.6 lakh people worth Rs 138 crore went directly to Airtel’s payment bank.
But hell yes, UIDAI took strict action against Airtel and suspended Airtel’s e-KYC license for all its service. Wow, so harsh! And then, the authority gave it back partially in five days flat. Interestingly, Airtel is still able to do SIM card verifications but cannot use Aadhaar for Payment Banks, DTH and other services. No FIRs against the company and the money was returned to the respective accounts. Airtel did get out the flaw of Aadhar but how dare The Tribune to show it! Face the FIR!

Not to mention, UIDAI denied of any breaching and said,


Some persons have misused demographic search facility, given to designated officials to help residents who have lost Aadhaar/Enrollment slip to retrieve their details @thetribunechd @rsprasad @ceo_uidai @timesofindia @firstpost @IndiaToday @ZeeNews @htTweets @TheQuint

WHY THE PEOPLE OF MEGHALAYA WANT TO OPT OUT THEMSELVES FROM AADHAR?
More than a hundred people in Meghalaya joined an initiative last year to opt out of Aadhaar, and claimed that they were coerced into getting the 12-digit biometrics-based unique identification number.
The campaign was led by the Meghalaya Peoples Committee on Aadhaar, an umbrella organisation of student and civil society groups. The organisers said that the opt-out campaign came out in response to the Union government’s persistent expansion of Aadhaar’s ambit in violation of Supreme Court directives.
Meghalaya CM Mukul Sangma is against Aadhar Enrollment, I wonder why!
Even the CM of Meghalaya, Mr. Mukul Sangma has not enrolled for Aadhar Card. His explanation is clear and lucid enough. He said,“Our right to privacy is important in a democracy, else the whole idea of democracy is diluted”. Clearly, the security breach is one of the leading reasons.
When I try to dig out some other reasons why Meghalaya is not supporting the Aadhar drive, one of the reasons what people think, and could be true is, anyone can get an Aadhar Card, whether the person is an Indian or not. And, if I link it with Meghalaya, possibly the illegal immigrants could get it and become the inseparable part of the country. The fight for stopping the illegal influx takes the back seat and neither the Central Government wins nor the state government wins. UIDAI doesn’t win as well. And not even the people of Meghalaya!

Satish Acharya tells the collision of theory between the Supreme Court and the Modi Government

The Cyber Crime that could now target one thing, to breach the data of Aadhar, to get the transactions in one pocket, is winning? The illegal influx is winning? Only God can answer. 

This seems like the sinking Titanic Ship while the captain of the ship keeps screaming “Everything is fine” and, the people of Meghalaya, somehow know that the ship is sinking, my lord. The ship is sinking!
(Featured Image Courtesy: kamalcartoons.com)

















Why do Meghalaya People Want to be ‘Aadhar-less’?

mm By Kumar AnubhavUpdated: January 10 at 4:26 pm
The Aadhar Card has been the Central Government’s one of the most innovative moves (at least the Government says so). The Unique Identification Authority of India, or the UIDAI, has been working religiously to make people get registered under the process and has been perennially advancing to defy the benefits attached to it. Let’s first have a check on the benefits that the UIDAI claims but before that, DO NOT SHARE YOUR….



Getting the Aadhaar card would make a person linked with small savings schemes such as Kisan Vikas Patra and PPF (Public Provident Fund) as well as bank accounts. Applying for a PAN (Permanent Account Number) card now also requires quoting of Aadhaar. We get it, the tasks get easier than ever and might benefit the people that were not getting benefitted from the schemes.
So this means, the unique identification number would get you connected with all of your sources where the money is involved, directly or indirectly. At the very same time, the government could lay an eagle-eye (or better we call it Modi-eye) on all of your money related, taxation issues. Fair enough!
The other benefit is, the subsidy could be directly transferred to the bank account of the person that should avail it, under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). LPG subsidy is the core one!
The government is also providing Digital Locker where the people can directly submit their documents on the government server and requires just the Unique Identification Number (UIN) for the purpose.
Opening new bank accounts is now easier (I hope an SBI employee must be reading this) as the banks would take Aadhar Card as the Identity proof as well as the address proof and thus, minimizes the number of papers as the documents (Save paper, save forests).
Okay, there have been numerous benefits of having an Aadhar Card then why the people of Meghalaya, including the Meghalaya Chief Minister, don’t want to have an Aadhar Card?

SECURITY BREACH IS THE KEY FACTOR?

A few days back, one of the leading news journals of the Country, The Tribune featured story about the security breach in which The Tribune journalist Rachna Khaira somehow managed to ‘buy’ an access to the central UIDAI database for a mere amount of Rs 500 over Whatsapp, which clearly shows that UIDAI is not in control of the situation. But then, one of the deputy directors of UIDAI took the charge to amend the situation and filed an FIR against the journalist. Because, hey! showing the flaws of UIDAI is an offense under the section 47 of Aadhar Act, which says that only UIDAI can find the flaws in UIDAI, and only UIDAI can register an FIR against UIDAI. That’s so nothing lesser than ‘only God can judge me, and I am the damn God’.

Satish Acharya explains the bright side of Aadhar breach!
Notably, there was a design flaw in Aadhar Mapper which tells the government to transfer the subsidies through DBT. Airtel (I still can’t figure out if it was by the motive or not) used the Aadhar Mapper and became the default bank of DBT. As per the reports, the subsidy amount of 55.6 lakh people worth Rs 138 crore went directly to Airtel’s payment bank.

But hell yes, UIDAI took strict action against Airtel and suspended Airtel’s e-KYC license for all its service. Wow, so harsh! And then, the authority gave it back partially in five days flat. Interestingly, Airtel is still able to do SIM card verifications but cannot use Aadhaar for Payment Banks, DTH and other services. No FIRs against the company and the money was returned to the respective accounts. Airtel did get out the flaw of Aadhar but how dare The Tribune to show it! Face the FIR!

Not to mention, UIDAI denied of any breaching and said,


Aadhaar
@UIDAI
Some persons have misused demographic search facility, given to designated officials to help residents who have lost Aadhaar/Enrollment slip to retrieve their details @thetribunechd @rsprasad @ceo_uidai @timesofindia @firstpost @IndiaToday @ZeeNews @htTweets @TheQuint

2:19 PM - Jan 4, 2018
 121 121 Replies   204 204 Retweets   189 189 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
WHY THE PEOPLE OF MEGHALAYA WANT TO OPT OUT THEMSELVES FROM AADHAR?

More than a hundred people in Meghalaya joined an initiative last year to opt out of Aadhaar, and claimed that they were coerced into getting the 12-digit biometrics-based unique identification number.

The campaign was led by the Meghalaya Peoples Committee on Aadhaar, an umbrella organisation of student and civil society groups. The organisers said that the opt-out campaign came out in response to the Union government’s persistent expansion of Aadhaar’s ambit in violation of Supreme Court directives.

Meghalaya CM Mukul Sangma is against Aadhar Enrollment, I wonder why!

Even the CM of Meghalaya, Mr. Mukul Sangma has not enrolled for Aadhar Card. His explanation is clear and lucid enough. He said,“Our right to privacy is important in a democracy, else the whole idea of democracy is diluted”. Clearly, the security breach is one of the leading reasons.

When I try to dig out some other reasons why Meghalaya is not supporting the Aadhar drive, one of the reasons what people think, and could be true is, anyone can get an Aadhar Card, whether the person is an Indian or not. And, if I link it with Meghalaya, possibly the illegal immigrants could get it and become the inseparable part of the country. The fight for stopping the illegal influx takes the back seat and neither the Central Government wins nor the state government wins. UIDAI doesn’t win as well. And not even the people of Meghalaya!

Satish Acharya tells the collision of theory between the Supreme Court and the Modi Government
The Cyber Crime that could now target one thing, to breach the data of Aadhar, to get the transactions in one pocket, is winning? The illegal influx is winning? Only God can answer. 

This seems like the sinking Titanic Ship while the captain of the ship keeps screaming “Everything is fine” and, the people of Meghalaya, somehow know that the ship is sinking, my lord. The ship is sinking!

(Featured Image Courtesy: kamalcartoons.com)


12681 - Aadhaar insecurities - Hindu Businessline




The Centre must acknowledge the privacy concerns surrounding the UID programme

The damning media revelations of a serious back-door security breach that gives unauthorised persons unfettered access to the demographic data mapped to a billion-plus Aadhaar numbers have yet again shaken public faith in the robustness of the security architecture of the unique ID project. The latest exposé, by The Tribune, comes on top of other reports of data leaks which have compromised the data that the public either gave the UIDAI in good faith or was coerced into coughing up by successive governments. In every such case, the UIDAI and the Government have responded with cavalier unconcern — and a disquieting tendency to punitively go after the whistle-blower. 

In the most recent instance, rather than seek to address legitimate public misgivings over the breach of data that is mapped to virtually their entire financial universe, the UIDAI has filed an FIR against, among others, the journalist; and on social media platforms, the BJP has airily dismissed the well-documented report as “fake news”.

Beyond the clunky handling and the optics, there is a more serious issue at stake. At the heart of all these Aadhaar-linked security problems lies the fact that in the rush to give the unique ID enterprise the universality — indeed, the ubiquity — that policymakers whimsically deemed was necessary, the Government outsourced much of the enrolment and maintenance procedures to private operators without implementing fail-safe security protocols. 

Last year, the Government acknowledged in Parliament that in the past seven years, nearly 34,000 operators had been blacklisted for “polluting” the UIDAI ecosystem. Even in the latest instance, the unauthorised gateway to access Aadhaar data was abused by village-level enterprise operators initially hired — and subsequently fired — by the Government in order to make Aadhaar cards more widely available. Any attempt at plugging the loopholes must begin there, although it may already be too late, given that the demographic data has been hacked into.


Aadhaar was initially intended as an instrument of ‘inclusion’ — by giving authoritative proof of identity to the underprivileged who were falling through societal cracks. But since then it has morphed in many directions, with successive governments incrementally seeing it as a ‘silver bullet’ to address everything that afflicts governance in India, from inadequate financial inclusion to failure of last-mile delivery of welfare services to poor tax compliance to black money and even terrorism. Today, Aadhaar symbolises the cradle-to-grave overreach of a Big Government that is obsessively delighting in a new toy. And somewhere along the way, Aadhaar appears to have gone from being a facilitator of inclusion to an instrument of exclusion. And, as The Tribune report establishes, there are gaping holes in the security architecture. Perhaps the ongoing case in the Supreme Court will give occasion to review the merits of the project in its entirety

12679 - India’s biometric programme is putting the identities of a billion people at risk - Quartz

DEVIL'S IN THE DATA

India’s biometric programme is putting the identities of a billion people at risk


               I see trouble. (Reuters/Mansi Thapliyal)

When Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani shepherded the Aadhaar programme into existence at the turn of the decade, the motivation was to ensure better delivery of subsidies and government schemes, and avoid duplicates from cashing in.
So far, over a billion Indians have enrolled for Aadhaar, India’s 12-digit biometric identity number.

Over time, telecom companies, banks, insurers, and other corporates also began using Aadhaar to verify identities, supposedly to prevent fraud. Under the Narendra Modi government’s watch, the platform has expanded from an authentication tool into a master database of sorts that is now being used to check the veracity of other databases. And as its implementation has widened in recent months, Aadhaar has now almost become something of a coercive instrument, with service providers compelling citizens to link their biometric information, while concerns persist over the vulnerability of data on the platform.

To top it off, whenever the holes in the platform are brought to light, the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has turned vindictive.

Shooting the messenger
On Jan. 03, Rachna Khaira, a journalist with The Tribune newspaper, published a report detailing how she paid just Rs500 ($7.84) to buy Aadhaar data from an anonymous seller over WhatsApp—something the UIDAI denied was a result of failed security.

No #Aadhaar data breach; Aadhaar data including biometric information is fully safe and secure: @UIDAI, denying report by @thetribunechd, saying it is a case of misreporting 1/2 pic.twitter.com/2d4ORHqqMh


Claims of bypassing or duping the #Aadhaar enrollment system are totally unfounded: @UIDAI, denying report by @thetribunechd 2/2 pic.twitter.com/Rn3k15mDJJ

Two days after the article was published, the UIDAI filed a first investigation report (FIR) not just against the people selling the data but also against Khaira herself. Although the agency denied it was “shooting the messenger,” critics are unconvinced.
Seven in 10 Indians don’t approve of the UIDAI’s move, a recent poll of 6,259 citizens by community-based social network LocalCircles showed. The Editors Guild of India, meanwhile, condemned it as an attack on the press.
“I thought those showing the faults in the system would be rewarded,” Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher, told Quartz. “(The UIDAI has) taken no responsibility for what is happening. Instead they are using the Aadhaar Act of 2016 to assert the authority to decide who should be charged with an offence. All that does is to silence those who find flaws in the system.”
To prevent future breaches, the UIDAI, on Jan. 09, revoked access for around 5,000 designated officials—both government and private operators—who were involved as intermediaries in the ecosystem. “This is at least the fourth time that UIDAI has gone after the whistleblower,” said Reetika Khera, a professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, who has studied the impact of Aadhaar on welfare programmes.
In March 2017, a police complaint was filed against Sameer Kochhar, head of Gurgaon-based think-tank Skoch Development Foundation, for sharing a video demonstrating how unauthorised transactions were taking place via the replay of stored biometrics. Incidentally, this is the same malpractice for which authorities had halted Aadhaar-based transactions by Axis Bank and verification platforms such as Suvidha and eMudhra. In the same month, an FIR was filed against a CNN-News 18 journalist who conducted a sting operation to obtain two separate Aadhaar enrollment numbers with the same set of biometrics. Then, in May, when the Center for Internet Security (CIS) disclosed that 130 million Aadhaar details had been leaked, the UIDAI questioned it over possible hacking.
After legal notices were served on the CIS, the Twitter accounts of their researchers—once an active resource about all things Aadhaar—were “reduced to nothing for a while and is now down to a trickle,” Khera said. “The UIDAI has succeeded in creating a huge chilling effect.”

Holes in the system
Last April, during an interview with Quartz, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the UIDAI chief executive officer, vehemently denied that any data breaches had occurred. The UIDAI claims its databases are fully secure.

Even so, that does not imply that the entire Aadhaar ecosystem is free of leaks. “I don’t think the potential risk of data leaks and data breaches, where personal data is provided, should be underestimated,” said Pranesh Prakash, the policy director at CIS, adding that Aadhaar-linked data bases are available with all state governments and numerous other people in the ecosystem.

As early as 2015, data were already being misused to scam bank customers. In April 2017, Aadhaar data of over a million pensioners were exposed due to a programming error on a website maintained by the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security. “More personal information available in the public domain including phone numbers, addresses and date of birth…every additional piece makes it easier to engage in identity fraud,” Prakash explained.

However, Prakash emphasised that the issue extends beyond Aadhaar. “It’s a mistake to see this as a problem with UIDAI and its systems alone. There’s a much larger problem you’re facing in India,” he added. “Those who believe doing away with Aadhaar will fix data protection and surveillance are sorely mistaken.”

In November 2017, the Airtel Payments Bank came under the scanner for violating the Aadhaar Act by opening accounts without explicit consent while carrying out Aadhaar verification of customers’ mobile numbers. Over 2.3 million customers reportedly received as much as Rs47 crore ($7.4 million) in total in their Airtel bank accounts, which they were unaware even existed. The digital bank’s electronic know-your-customer (eKYC) licence was revoked and soon after, Shashi Arora, CEO of Airtel’s payment bank, put in his papers.

“People say we are being alarmist but actually it’s happening and this is just the beginning,” Khera said. “Instead of putting their foot on the brake, they’re pushing it down on the accelerator.” Public sentiment seems to reflect the alarm: more than half of 7,608 citizens surveyed by LocalCircles said they are concerned about the ability of government agencies to protect their Aadhaar details.

Forced voluntary programme
Alongside, India’s citizens are almost forcefully being ushered into the programme from all directions.
The Modi government is aggressively pushing for the introduction of Aadhaar into as many of services and systems as possible, finding legal covers “to ensure mandatory compliance of what started off as a voluntary programme,” Sanjay Hegde, a senior advocate at the supreme court of India, told Quartz. For instance, under the amendment to the money laundering Act, bank accounts with more than Rs50,000 in them must be linked to Aadhaar, Hegde explained. Further, the government made it mandatory to link mobile numbers to Aadhaar, based on NGO Lokniti Foundation’s findings that unverified SIM cards were being misused and posed a major threat to national security.
Earlier, taxpayers had until the end of 2017 to link Aadhaar with their permanent account numbers.

But in light of a slew of cases pending in the supreme court challenging this mandatory linking, the government extended the deadline to March 31, 2018. Mobile phone users and bank account holders, too, have until then to connect their Aadhaar numbers to these services.

“Even today, under the Aadhaar Act passed in parliament, participation is said to be voluntary but the voluntariness is like the Henry Ford argument that ‘you can have any colour as long as it’s black’,” Hegde said.

The push comes despite there being no transparent, conclusive proof of how much money the programme is really saving. Conversely, Aadhaar has created “a readily available single target for cyber criminals,” Reserve Bank of India (RBI) researchers said in an October 2017 paper, citing issues with the quality of authentication, unclear financial benefits, and security concerns.

Concerns about violating privacy are also rife because India does not have a privacy law on paper yet. The Srikrishna commission is working on a draft.

And there are many loopholes even in volunteering Aadhaar information: Technically, each database using Aadhaar is protected by a separate law, Aadhaar architect Nilekani told Quartz in April 2017. Banking data slots under the Banking Secrecy Act, while PAN data comes under the Income Tax Act, and so on, and laws exist to bar sharing across these databases. That, however, doesn’t mean that cross-linking is absent. “Of course it’s happening, and it’s happening mindlessly. Every two-penny bureaucrat in charge of any programme is asking for Aadhaar,” said Hegde.

The UIDAI didn’t revert to Quartz about the perceived coercion and security concerns at the time of publishing.
Now all eyes are on the courts. A five-judge constitution bench of the supreme court, led by chief justice Dipak Misra, will conduct the final hearings on the validity of the Aadhaar scheme, challenged in 24 separate petitions, beginning on Jan. 17. These petitions flag concerns around mass surveillance. One filed by Kalyani Menon Sen, a women’s rights activist, opposes the linking of Aadhaar with mobile numbers on grounds of violating privacy. In another petition, bank employees have complained that they don’t have the bandwidth to offer Aadhaar services.

Until then, what was supposed to be showpiece technology achievement of world’s largest democracy remains a risk.

12678 - Aadhaar data breach FIR: Pb Cong govt extends support to protest by Tribune staff - Outlook India

09 JANUARY 2018  Last Updated at 9:46 PM


Chandigarh, Jan 9 Punjab's Amarinder Singh government today extended its support to the protest by 'The Tribune' employees against filing of an FIR against the newspaper's journalist over a report on alleged breach of Aadhaar data.

The Tribune employees union today staged a demonstration demanding revocation of the FIR, during which Cabinet minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, state Congress chief Sunil Jakhar and Media Advisor to the chief minister Raveen Thukral joined the protesters, said an official release here.

Bajwa lashed out at the alleged "witch hunt" unleashed by the central government against 'The Tribune' reporter over her Aadhaar data breach report.

Filing of FIR against 'The Tribune' reporter amounted to "sheer victimisation" and could not be condoned at any cost, he said, adding such acts were in violation of the democratic ethos and principles.

Jakhar also lashed out at the Centre for the registration of the FIR against the scribe.

Pointing out that the BJP had opposed Aadhaar when they were in the Opposition in the Centre, Jakhar said the Centre should plug the flaws in the Aadhaar system and ensure that privacy was safeguarded.

The entire leakage episode should be investigated, he demanded.

Jakhar accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of suppressing the voice of the media, and the people and said that this did not behove well of a democratically-elected government.

"How can a journalist be prosecuted for doing her work, without malice," Bajwa and Jakhar asked, adding that the way the central government was stifling the voice of democratic institutions did not augur well for the country.

All democratic forces should come together to fight this trend, which, if unchecked, would destroy the very fabric which holds the nation together, they said.

Thukral conveyed Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's personal support to the agitating Tribune employees during a visit to their protest site here today.

Though the chief minister could not meet them personally as he was indisposed, he had assured of his government's full backing to the media in the interest of "press freedom", Thukral told the protestors.

"The chief minister was in favour of the central government plugging the Aadhaar leaks instead of putting the plug on the system which had exposed the loopholes," said Thukral, adding the Congress government in Punjab would do its best to fully protect the freedom of the fourth pillar of democracy.
Thukral said he was personally shocked by the "act of persecution" and urged the Centre to withdraw the FIR and order a thorough investigation into the alleged leakage of Aadhar data.

The Delhi Police has registered an "open-ended" First Information Report (FIR) on a complaint from Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) over the report on the alleged data breach of more than one billion Aadhaar numbers.
The UIDAI's complaint sparked condemnation from the Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees' Organisations which demanded its withdrawal. Calling it an attack on the free press, the Confederation had said the UIDAI should highlight errors in the report, if any, instead of taking penal action.


Though the complaint named four persons, including the Chandigarh-based daily The Tribune's reporter who had filed the story on alleged breach in Aadhaar database, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said the FIR was against "unknown" entities.


12677 - God, please save India from our upper class Aadhaarophobics - The Print



SHEKHAR GUPTA 9 January, 2018

A person giving biometrics for Aadhaar | Wikimedia Commons
If your sarkar wants to keep track of you, it doesn’t need Aadhaar. But the poor need it for their rights and that’s why they aren’t protesting.

There are two aspects to the Aadhaar/The Tribune controversy. 

One is the thoughtlessly stupid FIR which names reporter Rachna Khaira and the newspaper, among others, though not as accused – a shot fired in anger by an almighty bureaucrat furious at having his weekend ruined. The other is the scare-mongering over Aadhaar, which rivals the Gaul fear of the falling sky in Asterix comics.

Activists of the upper crust, upper class, wine ‘n cheese, Netflix-watching social media elite—mostly of the Left, but some of the Right too—see a final vindication of their view that Aadhaar is becoming the most diabolical mass threat to India since the bubonic plague was banished. They wouldn’t want the two issues, the FIR and “dangers” of Aadhaar, to be seen as distinct.
Which is precisely what I am going to do. So help me God, from Aadhaarophobic cyber-warriors (I never use the description “troll” for any humans).

It’s also perfect timing for the activists. The Aadhaar case comes up for its final hearing on the 17th of this month. So the five good judges, watching and reading this, “should know” what to do. Not to leave it to chance, there’s been a flurry of articles by respected activists in equally respected publications over the past few weeks. Again, hoping that the judges would heed these, if not the million dire warnings each day on Twitter.

The first issue is settled easily. The government has tried damage-control on the FIR with a statement by the IT Minister. The honourable thing to do is to amend the FIR to leave out the reporter and the newspaper. They can be summoned later as witnesses if the case progresses. Anything else would be, for want of a stronger yet printable word, idiotic.

The second is the fear-mongering on Aadhaar. The biggest fear is, this will put governments on the inside track of our lives: where we go, what we eat, who we meet, which hotel we checked in, which flight we took, what our political, ideological or sexual orientation is, did we bitch about our bosses, are we cheating on our spouses, and if so with who or who else’s spouses, what is my blood pressure and cholesterol count, is my pet a dog or a cat and is it neutered, and if so, who’s the vet and what does he eat, who is he dating, and so on.

Here’s a reality check. And some reasons why elite phobia of Aadhaar as the ultimate surveillance state is 99.99 per cent exaggerated.

All governments are hungry for information on citizens “of interest” and will misuse it. But surveillance on 134 crore Indians? Any sarkar would need/want to keep track of just some specific categories of citizens – political, bureaucratic, media, intellectual, judicial, activist and the creative elite. I am sure that I am among them and fully work on the presumption that governments keep track of what details they want on me.
That use of the plural, governments, is deliberate. All governments do this. Congress governments were no angels. Would any government need me to have Aadhaar to do this any better? I’d be delusional to think that. If I need to protect a source, I’d be a dangerously incompetent journalist to call her from my phone. I shall borrow someone else’s. This is basic hygiene of a journalist’s life. Similarly, others must have their rules too.

Does a government need Aadhaar to keep track of our honourable judges? Ask the judges. Every Collegium meeting for years reads an Intelligence Bureau report on each candidate that comes up for judicial appointment. Those Charlies work on “reputation”, pure hearsay, and can make or mar careers or the quality of the judiciary. They never needed Aadhaar.

Top bureaucrats? What is the new “360-degree” system of reputational check that the government has set up? It is all about what people say about so and so, so we can decide whether to elevate him/her to a full secretary or not. All hearsay, some of which will also come from party or RSS workers on the ground. Does this need Aadhaar?

Activists? Did Aadhaar enable the government to muck around with Teesta Setalvad’s credit card bills? Hotel check-ins? From British times, every hotel has its registers checked by the local police special branch each evening. After recording a ‘Walk the Talk’ at the Gateway of India one early morning, Sushil Kumar Shinde, then Maharashtra chief minister, took me to the Taj Mahal Palace hotel coffee shop for breakfast, looked almost wistfully at the reception and said: “When I was a sub-inspector in special branch, I used to come here every day to copy the guest register.”

So if you’ve been up to interesting things lately, and are a person of interest to the government, chances are they already know more than you’d want them to. Not having Aadhaar wouldn’t have helped.

Fact is, every time you use your credit card, check into a hotel, take a flight and thereby cut a PNR, make a bank transaction, a phone call, pay tax, send an SMS, write/do/say anything that goes through a server, watch a movie (even on Netflix in your bedroom or somebody else’s) you leave an indelible trail.
Each PNR can enable a government to get a track on every flight you have taken at least in the past 7-8 years. This is the reality in a post-9/11 world and a post-26/11 India, hyper-paranoid about terror. If you still want true privacy and anonymity, find yourself one of the 500 uninhabited islands in the Maldives. But hurry, before they drown due to global warming. Or even earlier, before the Chinese get there and build a naval base.

The short point is, if a government wants to keep track of a citizen, it can do so quite easily. It is just that the government does not need to, and cannot keep track of the 119 crore citizens who already have Aadhaar and the rest are coming in at a quick clip of 2.5 lakh per day.

Fear-mongering has reached such fantastic proportions that confirmed nihilists like Julian Assange (who believes there is more democracy in China and Russia than in America and India) and Edward Snowden are being quoted in support. It is touching to believe our judges would be influenced by those hiding from judicial scrutiny in their own democratic countries. Nor do I believe our judges watch tech-phobic British TV series Black Mirror (neither do I). And the poor of this country aren’t impressed by any of this. Certainly they do not watch Black Mirror or read Weapons of Math Destruction.

There are three kinds of opposition to Aadhaar.
First, from those who find the very idea of the state revolting. Those we can do nothing about except to say that they should be happy they can say all they want in their own country rather than hide in the Ecuadorean embassy or be the great Gandhian Putin’s guests.

Second are those fearing for privacy, whose concerns I have already argued with in detail.
And third, the well-meaning anti-poverty activists who worry that mandatory Aadhaar-linking of subsidies and entitlements would hurt the poor. They also quote cases of misuse, glitches or denial of services often. Unlike the first category which detests the very idea of the state, these love the state, especially a physical, touchy-feely one. How can you leave the poor to technology? The sad fact for them – the poor have moved on. More than 10 crore poor have Aadhaar-linked LPG connections. Rs 75,000 crore has already been delivered to the poor people’s Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. Tell them now Aadhaar is their curse.

They should know the greatest curse in a poor Indian’s life is a lack of identity. Each time a poor Indian needs something from the government, she has to go to someone, a chhota bureaucrat, sarpanch or MLA for attesting evidence of her identity. Friction and arbitrage is built in the system. The new Aadhaar identity liberates and empowers. Or millions of the 119 crore already with it would have been out on the streets protesting and not leave it to 3,229 (or thereabouts, I just made up that number) social media elites to wage this Great War for their liberty. How come no poor people are out protesting? Or not chucking their Aadhaar cards? Try and take it away from one.

How would the paranoid respond to that? Arrey, these poor gullible ganwar villagers, inko kya pata? We have to protect them, because we know better, what with our fancy education in great Ivy League—and some more revolutionary—Indian campuses. We know better, and they need our protection.
So here is my suggestion to this distinguished but gratuitously patronising lot. Go to YouTube, watch Saala main to sahab ban gaya… from Dilip Kumar-Saira Bano starrer Sagina. Then stop at the line: “Tum langoti waala na badla hai na badlega/tum sab kaala logon ki kismat hum saala badlega.” Replay it a few times.
Amazing how Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote these lines just for you in 1974.

Postscript: Anti-Aadhaarism is happily a lost cause. Even if the Supreme Court says it isn’t compulsory for government services, the poor, a few more numerous than activists (!), won’t stop using it. A privacy law is needed, Aadhaar or no Aadhaar. The paranoid rich can go back to paper-tickets for air travel. But remember, even then there will be a PNR and data will be accessible for all aviation security and anti-terror organisations across the world: at the flick of a button on a common database.

Disclosure: Nandan Nilekani, the founder of UIDAI, is among the distinguished founder-investors in ThePrint. Please click here for details on investors.