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

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

8381 - Aadhaar and the right to privacy - Live Mint

LAST MODIFIED: TUE, JUL 28 2015. 12 08 AM IST


The right to privacy requires a careful debate on how to secure it


Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint

Last week, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi set the cat among the pigeons when he told the Supreme Court that there was no fundamental right to privacy under the Constitution. 

The first law officer cited a 1954 case (M.P. Sharma vs Satish Chandra) in which an eight-judge bench held there was no such right. Rohatgi was arguing for the government on a challenge to Aadhaar, the unique identification number project.

Privacy rights champions say that because Aadhaar is not backed by legislation, the government can abuse data gathered under the programme. Biometric information collected from all those who sign up for an Aadhaar number can be abused if not backed by adequate legal safeguards. 

The government and those who feel that without Aadhaar, targeting of social welfare schemes will be hard, think otherwise.

In theory, each citizen should to be entitled to his or her privacy, subject to what is necessary to ensure security of citizens, including their well-being. This, however, is a circle that is not easy to square. A carte blanche denial of privacy will defeat democracy, but so will an absolute right to privacy. In the latter case, terrorists will simply do what they please while the government watches helplessly. That is not the question here. The question is about ensuring the effectiveness of the right without the costs of such a right becoming a debilitating factor.

One way out of the problem could be to create a fundamental right to privacy. This can be given shape in two ways. One could be by a judicial extension of already existing fundamental rights. This approach has been used in the past. 

In a 1985 decision, the apex court extended the right to livelihood to be a part of the fundamental right to protection of life and personal liberty (Article 21). Something similar can be done with respect to the right to privacy by enlarging the fundamental freedoms enshrined in Article 19. This will be the positive route. The other way is to limit the reach of the government by ending further enrolment under the Aadhaar platform. Currently, more than 800 million Indians have been handed out Aadhaar numbers and approximately 400 million more are yet to be enrolled.

This would be a liberal solution to the right to privacy problem. Both approaches are limiting for different reasons. If the court goes ahead and creates a right to privacy, it will raise a further question: how will this new right be secured? It is instructive to compare the new right with an existing right, for example, the right from arbitrary arrest or the freedom of speech. The cost of enforcing these rights is not high. This is because the number of violations of these rights is low and the burden on the judiciary for settling matters is rather low.

Ask yourself the question as to how many habeas corpus writs the high courts and the Supreme Court issue every year? It is also costly for the police and governments to engage in the violation of this right. A free press, an independent judiciary and a Parliament alive to the freedom of citizens are sufficient to safeguard this right.

This cannot be said about the right to privacy. Here the equation of costs is reversed. It is cheap for any government—if it so chooses—to violate this right. The technology that is available permits anyone—let alone a government—to snoop. The number of potential violations will be so large that enforcing this right will be well-neigh impossible for our overburdened court system.

If privacy has to be secured meaningfully, then some limits have to be placed on the government’s ability to gather information. That, whatever maybe one’s persuasion on privacy matters, is not about to happen easily. The courts and the country need to debate on how to achieve this end. The right question to ask is about the design of incentives that can secure a modicum of privacy in this age. There has hardly been any debate on the subject.

Should Aadhaar be shut down because it endangers privacy? Tell us at views@livemint.com

FIRST PUBLISHED: TUE, JUL 28 2015. 12 08 AM IST