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

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

2126 - How does govt justify ‘Aadhaar’ when its foundation has crashed? - Deccan Herald

Tuesday 20 December 2011


Mathew Thomas
UID – ‘Aadhaar’ was touted out as a ‘transformational’ initiative -- one that would change the face of India, make it the most digitised nation in the world, with the biggest data base of demographic information anywhere and so forth.





‘Aadhaar,’ which means ‘support’ or ‘foundation,’ was to be the platform on which all government programmes and many commercial applications were to be built.

The rejection by the parliament’s standing committee (PSC) of both the NIA bill to ‘regularise’ UIDAI’s actions and the UID scheme itself, has brought the Aadhaar foundation crashing down to earth.

The rejection must have come as a shock to many, but for those who were closely following the developments, it was expected. The most important aspect of the committee’s report is that it has gone beyond a mere examination of the bill. It looked at the UID scheme in considerable detail.

The report is hence, not just a view on the bill’s legality, but on the UID project itself, its dangers, utility and feasibility also. It examined expert witnesses and provided adequate opportunity to UIDAI authorities to rebut criticism. But UIDAI seems to have failed miserably in convincing the committee.

There is near unanimity on the report, as 28 of the 31 members agreed with it. Of the three dissenting notes, one said that he was new and hence, not aware of the details. Another senior Congress member dissented without giving any reason.

Besides, the home ministry has raised concerns on national security. The finance ministry has questioned aspects of the expenditure. It is easy to dismiss these as turf wars within government. The committee, however, gave credence to objections of both ministries.

In fact, the committee has rejected the scheme on seven major counts and consequently concluded that the bill in its present form is unacceptable. It urged the government to reconsider and review the UID scheme and the bill, in all its ramifications.

The seven grounds on which the committee based its report were: lack of feasibility study, hasty approval, threats to national security, being directionless, using unreliable technology, need for privacy and data-protection and lack of coordination among government agencies involved.

The committee also questioned the legality and ethics of implementing the scheme without statutory authority. Some of the observations of the committee are scathing.

For example, it said, “The UID scheme has been conceptualised with no clarity of purpose and is being implemented in a directionless way and may end up being dependent on private agencies.”

UIDAI has contracted for biometric technology from a former US company, L1 Identity Solutions, with close links to US intelligence agencies. It is now a subsidiary of Safran of France. UIDAI has not disclosed the terms of the technology contract. From available information, it appears that L1 does the de-duplication of biometric data.

Continued dependence
The system integration contractor is another foreign company, Accenture PLC. The entire national demographic data base would be stored in foreign, private company systems, apart from continued dependence on them for identification. In these days of cyber wars, if this does not raise concerns of national security, what will?

If Huawei and Devas were considered security threats, why not L1 be thought so too? The lack of a feasibility study for such a project is indefensible. That the idea was the brainchild of an ex-corporate honcho, who should know the essentiality of feasibility studies before money is spent, makes UID’s implementation without it, astonishing.

Next, the committee talks of ‘hasty approval.’ The fact that a law was thought necessary is evident from the NIA bill tabled in the House. If a law was essential, why launch the project, without it?

This is the same government, which is at pains to uphold the sanctity of parliamentary processes, for the Lokpal bill. Why does it have double standards for UID project? The committee’s view that the UID project is ‘directionless’ has good justification. One need to see only how many times, the question has been asked, whether UIDAI would issue an ID card.

Even today, no one knows, whether Aadhaar is a card or a number in a data base. Orders were issued to print cards recently and then cancelled. UIDAI has been talking of opening up the ‘Aadhaar platform’ for building commercial applications. No one knows what this means.

There is a business portal on the UIDAI website. Is the government aware of the intention to use data gathered by spending public funds, for private businesses? While UIDAI confines itself to providing identity, it leaves its use to others, like the state government civil supplies departments. How this would lead to better targeting of the beneficiaries of Central subsidies is unclear.

The concept of UID is based on the assumption that lack of identity is the reason for inability of the poor to access welfare. This appears seriously flawed. It ignores the discretion vested in government officials in deciding eligibility. 



Extraneous considerations, such as caste and other prejudices and sheer helplessness of the poor are the real reasons for denial of welfare. 


Corruption by those who are to prevent leakage is the major cause. The government seems to have misplaced priorities.

Instead of spending on storage, preserving food grains, and streamlining the distribution system, it is embarking on a massive IT project to provide identities to people, ostensibly to target the poor.

The committee concluded that the NIA bill is unacceptable and  urged the government to review the project. Perhaps, wiser counsel would still prevail and the government may halt further expenditure on the project immediately and evaluate it properly.

(The writer is a civil activist)