5458 - Controversy surrounds India’s biometric database - X Index

http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/04/controversy-surrounds-indias-biometric-database/

Controversy surrounds India’s biometric database

Questions about the security of India's giant biometric database continue to be raised by privacy advocates

By Mahima Kaul / 11 April, 2014

(Image: Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock)

Established in 2009 by executive order, the Unique Identification Number Authority of India (UIDAI) has taken on the monumental challenge of issuing each resident of the country with a Unique Identification Number (UID), more commonly known as the Aadhaar card. The driving idea behind the card was to ensure that residents could have a singular identification card that can eliminate duplicate and fake identities and also can be verified in a cost effective manner. Biometrics are the primary method for identification, while other details such as addresses, family, and even bank accounts are linked to the card.

Recently, the UIDAI was in the news as it challenged an order by the Goa High Court to share biometric details of all enrolled Goa residents with India’s Central Bureau of Investigation in order to solve an investigation. The Supreme Court of India ruled that UIDAI did not need to share its data with any agency of the government without the consent of those in its database. In his blog, the former Chairman of UIDAI (and currently running for a seat in India’s hotly contested national elections)Nandan Nilekani wrote: “We have always stated that the data collected from residents would remain private, and not be shared with other agencies.”

An audible sigh of relief was heard in the media from privacy activists who were concerned that the data collected by the UIDAI would be easily accessed by any government agency once it was in the system. This concern for privacy and data protection isn’t completely unfounded. Indian media has reported on grave gaps in the data collection process. In March 2013, a Mumbai paper reported that data collected from residents in 2011 was still lying around in cupboards in a suburb, despite the area residents repeatedly reminding the authorities to take away the information.  The same state had, in 2013,  “admitted the loss of personal data of about 3 lakh [100,000] applicants for Aadhaar card”, an error that sparked concerns over possible misuse of the data, not to mention the trouble of having to register personal data all over again. 

According to the report, the data had been lost while uploading from the state information technology department to the UIDAI central server in Bangalore, Karnataka. Government officials tried to assure the public that the data was highly encrypted and could not be misused. However, this incident wasn’t unprecedented. Just the year before, veteran journalist P. Sainath of the Hindu had highlighted this issue in a talk, saying that: “You can buy that data on the streets of Mumbai. It’s already made its way there. What sort of national security will you have when your biometric data is up for grabs all around the planet? You outsourced it to subcontractors who have subcontracted it to further people. It’s now available on the streets of Mumbai, biometric data.”

Given that the government has spent Rs 3800 crore (around $600 million) on the project already, it is interesting to note that India has not yet passed a privacy law, a comprehensive data protection law and nor did the parliament pass the National Identification Authority of India Bill, which was rejected by a parliamentary standing committee on finance in 2011. As was reported at the time, the standing committee rejected the report on the grounds that the scheme had “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”. It also went on to raise concerns about privacy, identity theft, misuse, security of data and duplication during the implementation of the UID scheme, and cited global examples of similar schemes that were rejected.

However, it is useful to see the guiding principles behind the implementation of the scheme that made it so attractive to the Congress-led UPA II government. The spirit of UID seems to lie in two guiding principles; using Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to make government more effective, and entering the data game. In a recent interview to the Economic Times, Shrikant Nadhamuni, who headed technology for UIDAI is quoted as saying: “We wanted to move the ID game—from a state where some people had no ID and others had paper ID to something beyond even what Singapore had, in the form of smart cards, to online. Like biometric. Which is the future.”

The basis of the design of what was to become the UID was also laid out in the Report of the Technology Advisory Group for Unique Projects, submitted to the Ministry of Finance in 2011, headed by Nandan Nilekani, a respected figure in Indian business and later to become CEO of UIDAI. Others involved with the report were the chairman of the Security and Exchange Bureau of India (SEBI), the secretary, Department of Telecommunications of the Government of India, the chairman of the privately owned IFMR trust which seeks to ensure that every individual and enterprise has access to financial services, and a few other experts on the subject. Many government officers constituted the secretariat. The report put out some revolutionary ideas about how to integrate private expertise into the public sector. It deduces that “the most important lesson that needs to be acted upon is that business change’ should drive the design and implementation of these projects”.

This was to be done by implementing a National Information Utility (NIU), which would be private companies with a public purpose: profit-making, not-profit maximising. The NIU would be flexible in its functioning, and the government would keep strategic control over the project. Private ownership of the project should be at least 51% and the government’s share at least 26%. Once the NIU is to become steady, the government would become a paying customer and would be free to take its business elsewhere. However, the report also admits that given the massive investments in building the NIUs, they would essentially be set up to be natural monopolies. At the time, the report had looked at the following schemes of the Indian government: Goods and Services Tax (GST), Tax Information Network (TIN), Expenditure Information Network (EIN), National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and New Pension System (NPS). The first Unique Project to take off, however, was the UIDAI.

This strategy raised red flags as well. Usha Ramanathan, an academic activist, wrote in Moneylife that: “In this set-up, we are witnessing the emergence of an information infrastructure, which the government helps — by financing and facilitating the ‘start-up’, and by the use of coercion to get people on to the database — which it will then hand over to corporate interests when it reaches a ‘steady state’.” She continues in the same piece that: “The NIU was not explained to parliament, and no one seems to have raised any questions about what it is. This, then, is the story of how the ownership of governmental data by private entities is silently slipping into the system.”

Controversies surround the Aadhar project. Nilekani, who was appointed Chairperson of UIDAI in 2009 by the current UPA government, and simultaneously given the rank of a cabinet minister, is increasingly in the news because rumours are swirling in India that a new government might choose to shelve the project. The card, that was envisioned to become an almost one-stop-shop in the future years regarding the delivery of welfare schemes and subsidies, is no longer mandatory to avail some of these, according to India’s Supreme Court. This is a setback to the government that considered the Aadhar card a method to plug “leaks” in the government delivery systems.  Despite this, reports of data leakage, and even stories of fake Aadhar cards making their way into the news, the current establishment seems hopeful. The deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission, Montek Ahluwalia, made a statement that the card did not require a legal basis to be used for transferring benefits to citizens, much in the same way citizens are not legally required to hold degrees to gain jobs.

The UIDAI project remains complex – a herculean task. The UK government shelved its identity card project because it was untested and the technology not secure, and because of the risks to the safety and security of citizens. With India in the midst of an election, it remains to be seen what will happen when a new government is formed, and whether the country can succeed in this task.

This article was published on April 10, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

2740 - P Sainath's remarks at the public meeting organised by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis:

P Sainath's remarks at the public meeting organised by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis:

(He says, at the end of 45 minutes, that he hasn't yet touched upon a whole bunch of security issues, naming some of the more well-known civil/violent agitations, and then goes on) 

Oh yeah, I think that we are also involved in a number of other active processes that undermine [your] our insecurity, including the UID. OK. By the way, that outsourced biometric work. You can buy that data on the streets of Mumbai. It's already made its way there. What sort of national security will you have when your biometric data is up for grabs all around the planet? You outsourced it to subcontractors who have subcontracted it to further people. It's now available on the streets of Mumbai, biometric data. 

Another thing let me tell you about this stupid, stupid idea. Anywhere in the world, anywhere in the world, there is no-one who has made a success of the UID type of system. The UK started this kind of national ID system, abandoned it in four months. Australia, it collapsed at the discussion stage. No other country has made a success of it, one, and no-one claims that it is is technologically infallible, and three, very importantly, in any society, there is 5 % to 7 % of the population that does not have any fingerprints. In India, that is 15% +, because of agricultural labour: they do not have fingerprints. OK? The washerwomen, they do not have fingerprints. A lot of professions in India: and those are the very people who will get de-accessed from your public distribution system, using the UID. The very people who need your public distribution system, the very people who need your social sector benefits, these are the very people who will be excluded from it, because they don't have fingerprints. You are asking for big, big trouble, with this project.

2476 - The Food, the Bad and the Ugly by Sainath - The Hindu

The Food, the Bad and the Ugly by Sainath - The Hindu

March 22, 2012

P. SAINATH

MORE THAN THREE BAGS FULL: Food not reaching those who need it. A file photograph of wheat being loaded at an open FCI godown at Sonepat, Haryana

Average per capita net availability of foodgrain declined in every five-year period of the 'reforms' without exception. In the 20 years preceding the reforms — 1972-1991 — it rose every five-year period without exception.

The country's total foodgrain production is expected to touch a record 250 million tons this year (2011-12).

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar

PTI, February 17, 2012

Record foodgrain output of 235.88 million tons in 2010-11.

Sharad Pawar,

PTI, April 6, 2011

India's foodgrain production hit a fresh record at 233.87 million tonnes in 2008-09.

Sharad Pawar, Lok Sabha,

July 20, 2009

The Minister (Mr. Pawar) said food grain production in 2007-08 had reached a record 227.32 million tonnes and record production has been achieved in a number of crops.

Economic Times,

April 23, 2008

“During 2006-07, the agriculture sector has posted new landmarks. The record production of 216 million tonnes of food grains…”

Sharad Pawar,

November 13, 2007

Economic Editors conference

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar doesn't just deal in foodgrain production, he deals in records. Landmarks he's fond of citing as foodgrain production rises every year. (Barring blips like those in 2009-10, of course). Sticking to absolute numbers helps him maintain a modest silence on another record he's been a big part of.

The daily per capita net availability of foodgrain has been falling steadily and dangerously during the “reform” years. If we take five-year averages for those years from 1992 to 2010 — the figure declined every five years without exception (see table “Declining per capita …”). From 474.9 grams of cereals and pulses for the years of 1992-96 to 440.4 grams for the period 2007-2010 (The 2011 figure is yet to come). A fall of 7.3 per cent. There has not been a single five-year period that saw an upward blip.

What about the 20 years preceding the reforms? That is 1972-1991? The per capita availability figure rose every five-year period without exception. From 433.7 for 1972-76, to 480.3 grams in 1987-91. An increase of 10.7 per cent.

Not reaching the needy

Consider the average for the latest five years for which data are available. It was 441.4 grams for the period 2006-2010. That's lower than the corresponding period half a century ago. It was 446.9 for the years 1956-60. Not great news for a nation where malnutrition among children under five is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa's. (A point the India Human Development Report 2011 — from a wing of the Planning Commission — concedes).

If production is rising, which it is; if the upper classes are eating a lot better, which they are; and if per capita availability keeps declining, which it does — that implies three things at least. That foodgrain is not getting to those who most need it. That the gap between those eating more and those eating less is worsening. And that food prices and incomes of the poor are less and less in sync.

It also tells us how disastrous the reforms-era policy of “targeting” through the Public Distribution System has been. The poor have not gained from “targeting” in the PDS. They have been the targets. The “reforms” period has seen more poor and hungry people shut out of the PDS in practice. The latest budget suggests that “targeting” is about to get more ruthless. A universal PDS covering all would cost much less than what the government gives away each year in concessions to the corporate sector.

Small wonder that Mr. Pawar sticks to aggregate numbers in his claims of records. He stays with production in absolute numbers, because that's rising. As the Big Boss of Cricket in India (and the planet) Mr. Pawar would not be satisfied with totalling up how many runs a batsman of his makes. He'd divide it by the number of innings the batter has played. He'd perhaps even look at the number of balls he faced, strike rate and so on. But when it comes to his boss role on foodgrain, aggregate figures will do. The big numbers look so nice. Why complicate things by looking at how much foodgrain is available per Indian? That too, per day or year?

Economic Survey document

For those worried about food availability, though, it matters. The highest figure for any year in our history was the 510.1 grams for 1991. Aha! Chalk one up for the reformers? Not really. The data are based on the agricultural year — i.e. July to June. So the 1991 figure corresponds to the production of July 1990 to June 1991. Manmohan Singh made his speech launching the reforms on July 24, 1991. And the average for 2010, after nearly two decades of “reforms,” was 440.4 grams.

The decline across the reforms years has been dismal. Indeed, some five-year periods in this era compare poorly even with those in the pre-Green Revolution years. For instance, 2006-10 throws up worse figures than 1956-1960. All figures from 1961 are seen in the latest Economic Survey of 2011-12. (http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2011-12/estat1.pdf See A22, 1.17. Last year's survey has data going back to 1951.

This, of course, is the point at which someone pops up with: “It's all due to the population. The poor breed like flies.” Is it? The compound annual growth of population was much higher in pre-reform decades than it is now. But the CAGR for food production was always higher and ahead of it. Even in 1961-1971, when the CAGR for population was 2.24 per cent it was 2.37 for grain production. In 2001-10, the figure for population was just 1.65 per cent. But foodgrain production lagged behind even that figure, at 1.03 per cent. (For the growth rate in foodgrain, we have not taken 2010-11 into account. We have only advance estimates for that year and these can vary quite a bit from final figures).

In all the southern states the fertility rate is either at replacement level or even below it. And the population growth rate is falling everywhere in the country, and at quite a rapid pace. Yet, per capita availability has declined. So the population claim does not fly. There may be one-off years in which the growth rate of food production (or even per capita availability) gets better, or much worse. Hence, looking at five-year or decadal averages makes more sense. And the trends those show are awful.

This is a context where foodgrain production per capita is on the decline. Where, however, the buffer stocks with the government in fact show an increasing trend. So per capita availability is in fact declining at a faster rate. It means the poor are so badly hit that they cannot buy, or have access to, even the limited grain on offer.

GHI ranking

True, this will invite yowls of rage from the Marie Antoinette School of Economics (or ‘Let-them-eat-cake' crowd). For them the decline only shows that people now care less for cereals and pulses. They're eating much better stuff since they're doing so much better. So much better that we'd be lucky to reach Sub-Saharan Africa's rate of child malnourishment in a few years. Or improve enough in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) to challenge an upstart Rwanda in a few years. Presently we rank 67 in the GHI (out of 81 countries with the worst food security status). Rwanda clocks in ahead of us at rank 60. India's GHI value in 2011 was worse than it was 15 years before that in 1996.

We've spent 20 years promoting cash crops at the expense of food crops. No one knows quite how much land has been converted from the latter to the former, but it would run to lakhs of acres. As food crop cultivation has grown less remunerative, many have abandoned it. As farming tanks across large swathes of the country, more and more land lies fallow. The owners have given up on the idea of making a living from it. Close to seven-and-a-half million people quit farming between 1991 and 2001 (and we still await the figures for 2001-11). Two decades of policies hostile to smallholders, but paving the way for corporate control, have seen public investment in agriculture crash. No surprise then that foodgrain production is “growing” only in absolute numbers but falling at an alarming rate in per capita terms.

psainath@mtnl.net.in