12417 - Beware! Mobile firms may be misusing Aadhaar - Deccan Chronicle

Beware! Mobile firms may be misusing Aadhaar

DECCAN CHRONICLE. | KAMALAPATHI RAO H

Published

Nov 21, 2017, 2:29 am IST

Following a direction of the Supreme Court making it mandatory for people to link their mobile numbers with Aadhaar.

  While basic m-wallet doesn’t require KYC compliance, an RBI official  claimed that banks will be penalised if any account was found to be without KYC compliance.(Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Mobile operators, who have got payment bank licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), have been accused of opening m-wallet or payment bank accounts for  their customers without their knowledge. Some customers, who had visited mobile customer service centre for linking their mobile numbers with Aadhaar, claim to have received messages about activation of m-wallet/payment bank account without them downloading the app or providing their consent.

Following a direction of the Supreme Court making it mandatory for people to link their mobile numbers with Aadhaar, telecom companies have  been bombarding with reminder messages about the Aadhaar linkage. While basic m-wallet doesn’t require KYC compliance, an RBI official  claimed that banks will be penalised if any account was found to be without KYC compliance.

“Payment banks are not exempted from this rule. In a few circumstances, KYC is not required for transfering an amount below Rs 15,000. But, without knowledge of customers, opening an account is against the norms of the RBI,” he said. Some customers, whom this newspaper had spoken to, believe that the staff of the customer service centre are sharing the Aadhaar details of customers — submitted for mobile-Aadhaar linkage — for activating the M-Wallet app and in some cases payment bank accounts, without express consent of the customers.

S. Siddharth Mohan, a techie from AS Rao Nagar, said he got a message soon after providing the biometric authentication, stating that his M-Wallet app of the mobile service provider has been activated and he could send money, recharge phones, pay bills etc., through the app by depositing some money in it. “How did they create my account without my requesting it?” he asked.  “Immediately I went to the same outlet where I had provided biometric authentication and questioned the operator. They raised a complaint ticket and closed my m-wallet account,” he explained.

J.V. Ramana, who owns a retail store in Uppal, said that he has not submitted his Aadhaar details to the mobile provider but he is frequently receives messages insisting to download the pre-activated m-wallet app. “I use m-Banking app frequently for my business and have a few third-party payment apps like Paytm. We have a family CUG (Closed User Group) with the same mobile operator. Surprisingly, the operator is sending messages to only me, leaving out the 12 CUG numbers. I doubt if the telecom firm is monitoring my m-banking transactions, he said. 

• Mobile operators are creating Payment Bank Accounts of customers without their knowledge
• As per the guidelines of the RBI, the mobile operator can create an account only after receiving KYC from customers for fund transfers above Rs15,000. Customer must provide PAN details to the M-wallet app to transfer funds up to Rs 1 lakh.
• In cases of pre-activated M-wallet apps, raise the issue with your concerned customer service centre or mobile operator outlet.
• To avoid such practices by mobile operators, customers should be careful while providing biometric authentication.
• Mobile operators who have online/offline stores are luring customers with gift vouchers and cash back offers after activating M-wallet app account without their knowledge.

12358 - Linking Aadhaar to mobiles: Parties await Supreme Court's last word - Economic Times

Linking Aadhaar to mobiles: Parties await Supreme Court's last word

BY ARITRA SARKHEL, ET BUREAU | UPDATED: NOV 10, 2017, 

11.42 AM IST

The debate over linking Aadhaar with mobile phone numbers was renewed after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) reportedly said telcos will not act against unverified subscribers until the Supreme Court decides on the matter. 

DoT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said the government will not disconnect mobile connections of people who do not authenticate their identities with Aadhaar, according to media reports on Wednesday. She said the department is waiting for SC judgement on the Aadhaar issue. 

Sundararajan did not immediately respond to an email from ET seeking comments. 

The top court is scheduled to hear the mobile-Aadhaar linking issue on November 13 amid concerns over privacy as the government expands the use of the biometric-based identity number. 

 The DoT ordered telecom companies in March to carry out biometric authentication of customers after SC ruled in February that Aadhaar must be used to verify the identity and address of new mobile phone subscribers and a similar authentication of existing users must be completed within a year. 

As the debate over the use of Aadhaar intensified, aspects such as privacy and protection of personal data came into focus. A nine-judge bench of the apex court unanimously ruled in August that privacy is a fundamental right of Indians. According to the government, Aadhaar enables fairer access of the people to benefits and services. With the Digital India drive, Aadhaar has empowered people by increasing convenience and made their life hassle-free towards a paperless and cashless environment. According to some activists, there is no legal basis for linking Aadhaar with mobile phone connections. 

Anupam Saraph, a professor and governance expert, cited the failed attempt by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in October 2015 to get SC to permit biometric eKYC for paperless activation of telephone connectionsSIM cards as an alternative to the existing process of verification of telecom subscribers. “The five-member bench of the Supreme Court in its orders of October 15, 2015, had clearly rejected this request. No orders of any bench smaller than the five-member bench can overrule these orders,“ Saraph said. The DoT's order about linking with Aadhaar is a violation of SC orders in August and October of 2015, which unambiguously state that Aadhaar enrolment is optional, said Mishi Choudhary , legal director at the Software Freedom Law Centre. 

Somdutta Singh, vice chairperson of the Nasscom Product Council, argued that SC had recently concluded that privacy is intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution and will be included under part III of the Constitution.

12356 - Mobile connections not linked with Aadhaar will not be disconnected, says telecom secretary - Scroll.In

Mobile connections not linked with Aadhaar will not be disconnected, says telecom secretary

Aruna Sundararajan clarified that the Department of Telecom would wait for the Supreme Court’s judgment on the matter.

                   Pexels/Creative Commons licence

The government will not disconnect mobile connections that are not linked with Aadhaar, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan clarified on Wednesday.

She said the Department of Telecom would wait to hear what the Supreme Court says about people who do not want to link their mobile numbers with the biometric identification system, PTI reported.

“We are also working on alternatives for people who are abroad [to help them link their mobile number with Aadhaar],” Sundararajan was quoted as saying.

On November 3, the Centre reiterated before the Supreme Court that the deadline to link all mobile numbers with Aadhaar was February 6. The government said it could not change the deadline as the court itself had asked for such a date while hearing a petition in February this year.

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

• Telecom Department Aadhaar Supreme Court

12301 - Why Indian mobile users must take the initiative to protest against linking their phones to Aadhaar - Scroll.In

Why Indian mobile users must take the initiative to protest against linking their phones to Aadhaar

The government order presumes people are so addicted to their mobile phones that they will not risk getting them deactivated.

by  Ajaz Ashraf

Published Yesterday · 08:00 am

                        Rupak De Chowdhuri | Reuters

It is astonishing to see citizens always turn to the judiciary to safeguard their rights. It is even more so because our leaders, decades ago, popularised the idea of Satyagraha or non-violent resistance. What ought to be the last recourse has now become our default mode, our first impulse.

It is a truism that citizens can best protect their rights from state infringement through collective action. Their apathetic attitude to citizen solidarity explains, at least partially, why the state cavalierly issued the diktat to mobile phone users earlier this year to link their connections to their Aadhaar numbers or have their services terminated.

No qualms about violating an individual’s privacy, no fear that telecom operators could use the data for commercial and other benefits.

The state can behave so imperiously because it presumes that a popular blowback is unlikely. Sure, conscionable citizens will appeal to the judiciary, as it indeed has been done in what is called the Aadhaar matters, but the state boasts such formidable resources to battle legal challenges that a set of individuals could never hope to match.

In addition, there is always the possibility that the challenge to the state’s order to link Aadhaar to mobile phone numbers could be set aside. This is why it is sagacious to think of ways to persuade the state to withdraw the order rather than to wait for the judicial verdict. Some might say it is perhaps too late to think of these methods, but citizen solidarity will certainly make the state pause and think whenever it tries to shrink the rights of citizens next.

Doing it the Polish way

One such method could be to use the mobile phone as a weapon. Might it not be a good idea for mobile phone users to switch off their devices, say, for 30 minutes to express disquiet at the peremptory order to link their numbers to Aadhaar? As a gesture of protest, even 15 minutes would do, as long as the time for switching off mobile phones is synchronised across India.

Why would 15 minutes or 30 minutes of protest ruffle the state? The history of protests against the state tells us gestures of protest, regardless of their duration, matter inordinately. Take Poland.

When the Polish dictator General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law on December 13, 1981, the chocking of free flow of information predictably followed. Both the press and television dished out government propaganda dressed up as news. Tired of the government’s spin, a Pole in the town of Swidnik placed his television set on the windowsill and went out for a stroll at 7.30 pm, which was when the news would be televised.

His example was soon to be emulated by others in Swidnik, which had a population of 40,186 in 2012. The entire town would be out for a stroll at 7.30 pm. Of that protest, The New York Times reported:

“‘Every evening, precisely at 7.30, people just left their houses and began walking up and down the streets,’ said one source. ‘The protest snowballed. After a couple of days it seemed that everyone in town was out there. TV Sets Placed in Windows. People just walked their dogs, met each other, exchanged gossip. Some people put their TV sets in the window with the screen facing out so that everyone would know they weren’t watching it.’”

Swidnik’s protest is cited in researcher Hania M Fedorowicz’s The War for Information: The Polish Response to Martial Law, a paper that NDTV India anchor Ravish Kumar mentioned in the telecast beamed on the day the government raided the proprietors of the news channel. The protest at Swidnik spread to the larger city of Lublin, just 10 km away. And yes, the “walking protest”, as it was called, would last just 30 minutes.

Yet, symbolically, it was powerful enough to provoke the government to cut off electricity and water supply at 7 pm and impose limits on people moving outside their houses. These measures underscored “how effective society could be in demonstrating its independence from official mind-control”, Fedorowicz writes. In India, obviously, the diktat to link Aadhaar to mobile is not about mind control but, presumably, creating big data open to mining for a variety of purposes.

Poland’s civil society also established underground radio broadcast with the aim of “removing as large a public domain as possible from the government’s control”, writes Bartłomiej Kaminski in The Collapse of State Socialism: The Case of Poland. In its inaugural broadcast on April 12, 1982, the underground service “urged people to express their solidarity against martial law by switching off lights for 15 minutes at 9 0’ clock the next evening.” Another form of protest was not to buy newspapers, printed and published by the government.

Photo: Indranil Mukherjee / AFP

Mobile phone as weapon

Whoever thinks a protest lasting 30 minutes or 15 minutes is bound to be ineffectual needs to think again. It was through these measures that the people of Poland overcame their fear of martial law and the concomitant curbs imposed on them. Indians need to overcome their addiction to mobile phones to protect their rights, including privacy.

Indeed, the state’s Aadhaar strategy relies on exploiting the veritable epidemical addiction to mobile phones – India is inching towards 730 million mobile phone users, of whom 340 million possess smartphones. It is now a habit to want to be 10 digits away from children, old parents and friends. There are sites to visit, a video to watch, a meme to guffaw over, and a WhatsApp conversation to indulge in… We become anxious and apprehensive without mobile connectivity.

The Aadhaar order presumes that people are so addicted to their mobile phones that they will run to the telecom kiosk around the corner. Fanning this anxiety are incessant messages from telecom service providers asking people to link Aadhaar to mobile. As a technique, it emulates the method the British colonial master employed to hook the nation to tea.

A tale told by my grandfather, who heard it from his father, was that once tea was brought to India, companies producing it sent representatives from village to village to teach people how to brew tea, and gave them packets of it for free. Down the years, tea came with a price tag.

It is our addiction, our habit, which has rendered us vulnerable to the state’s order on Aadhaar. It may sound rich to talk of privacy in a country where people sleep on pavements or are packed 10 to a room. But Aadhaar is not just about privacy – it is about the state’s attitude towards citizens, its tendency to overwhelmingly reorder the public domain without a thought for the rights of citizens.

This is why we need to initiate a movement that requires people to switch off their mobile phones for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever. In an era in which hashtags dominate, might we not name the movement 

#Nomobilefor15minutes?

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

• Aadhaar Mobile Phone Numbers Privacy Protest