The Government of Indias dream initiative of a Unique Identification Number to all of 1.2 Billion people of India was an adventurous attempt. Let us briefly quote the objective of this popular scheme and its features. This mammoth and extensive exchequer project (Estimated at 45000) and comes with its own advantages of disadvantages. There are pros and cons arising out this project ,leads to social , ethical and political issues. As it is a IT driven automated process and bound to have data privacy issues to protect each citizen's individual privacy.
Basic objective of UID Scheme
As per the official Government Website:
Unique identification project was initially conceived by the Planning Commission as an initiative that would provide identification for each resident across the country and would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. It would also act as a tool for effective monitoring of various programs and schemes of the Government.
Aadhaar is a 12-digit exclusive numeral which the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will issue for all inhabitants. The figure will be stored in a centralized database and linked to the vital demographics and biometric information - (photograph, ten fingerprints and iris identification) - of each individual.
Issues
UID is projected as 'Common waapon for right of benefits" in inclusive politics, of bringing citizens together, who by virtue of physical remoteness, their postion in society or other liabilities were excluded from the system. UID Chairman Nandan Nilekani recently said that the Aadhaar number will not replace the passport, driving license or the voter identity card and that by 2014, 60 per cent of the country's population will have the 12-digit UID number. Though the aim of project is to given identifiy of each on every citizone of India, but the fact is that UID will eventually become the key element for the common man to work with the system, whether it is getting a rice from fairprice shot, getting ration card or opening a bank account or making a rent agreement to booking a train ticket or applying for a job.
To understand the system where we are planning to give a unique indentification number as long us you have basic identification document to proof the identity will tent to social, ethical and political issues are matters concern to government and the overall community.
Ethical issues
Let us first discuss what could be ethical issues that could come in this big fan scheme UID
Equity and access to the basic information
Data Privacy
Freedom of sharing information
Equity of access
UID is aimed to cover over 60% of our population to access the various information . As majority of population are still live in Rural and there is no statictics available right now how this schedule will fully covered with proper knowledge and education to people on the advantages of this scheme. For example, In the 1980s, Indian Govrnment tried to attempt similar scheme with available information to give Voter Identification to each and eligible citizen of this County and slowly integrated with other system. There are several reported incidentents of duplicates , way to evage the system roles and made this ID scheme become as one of document for identification purposes. You can still vote without this id card by giving any other identification like passport. Unless, we have access to the system and training necessary to fully participate in this exercise . it wil continue to be a bottle neck issue in the implementation. For eg. getting rural food cross-subsidies, and the E-Rate, establish their political legitimacy by appealing to equity of access as fairness and as justice. The Unique Identification (UID) project is already in the implementation pahse and several states have the schedule of getting the ids by Dec 2011.
Privacy concerns.
UID is fundamental premise that data subjects (photograph, ten fingerprints and iris identification ) such as ought to have "not able to be transferred to another ethical rights" about the "integrity" of the data collected about our people. But even as UID is one of the best things that could have happened to deepen the democratic process in our country, the often underline fact is that , UID is going to one of biggest collected of personal information in the world.. Looking at the size and different cultural diversity of the Indian population, it becomes as big as Google, and the implications of this huge collection of personal data are quite frightening. We are not very sure of sensitive of each data given lending to fundamental right one's privacy. The data privacy will one of key issue debated across the country and will be discussion its challenges, consequences and remedies little later in this case.
Freedom of Information
The UID though given to involuntary disclosure of basic data but some of legal gurus are claiming that it is going to violate the the fundamental rights of the people in ths system. To highlight the recent example, W.e.f. January 1, 2011, all categories of investors irrespective of amount of investment in Mutual Funds are required to comply with KYC (Know your customer) norms under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA) for carrying out the transactions such as new/ additional purchase, switch transactions, new SIP/ STP/ DTP registrations received etc. In the KYC Form, UID is the most preferred identification document . This is just a start , the upcoming legislation on the UID does not even bother to speak the language of rights - according to the provisions of the proposed bill, one can be penalized for not updating the information provided to the UID project. There is also another flip side of fact is that "there is the implicit danger that sooner than later the original idea of inclusiveness could be turned on its head by denying benefits to people who don't have the Aadhaar! "There is nothing to ensure that you will continue to receive the same benefits like those who have the UID number.
Social Issues.
Needs of Poor
If a poor person gets money that is due to him directly in his bank account, he will have no reason to plead with tyrannical local officials or grovel before his elected representatives.
Sadly, banking in India barely scratches the surface: the total number of bank branches as of March 2002, the latest figures we could find on the Reserve Bank of India's website, was just over 66,000, and less than half of these were in rural areas which account for around 70% of the population. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that each rural branch would need to service over 22,700 account-holders-clearly beyond their reach in a land where urban customers struggle to get decent and timely banking services from branches which need to cater to only around 9,000 customers each. If money is to be mandatorily disbursed directly into bank accounts of the recipients under various schemes (the process to be simplified using UID), it definitely won't target the poorest of the poor. One emerging solution is micro-banking, but micro-banking organisations will need to upgrade their technology considerably to deliver services, if UID referrals are to be included. Micro-banks are also not included within the broad banking framework, meaning that existing security measures ensure that they cannot access clearing-house operations and other such enablers of modern banking.
The upgrade cost is not factored into UID budgets, nor is UIDAI mandated to drive the changes that are needed in the banking system without which the UID referral is irrelevant
Possible Exclusion of the Poor From Schemes
Shockingly, instead of facilitating inclusion, around 150 million people are likely to be excluded from benefits because of the UID scheme. This is because of the inappropriate and unproven technology which will be used, which will lead to so-called 'low-quality' fingerprints taken from millions of Indians working in agriculture, construction workers and other manual labourers who have worn-out fingers due to a lifetime of hard labour. Ironically, the UID scheme is being introduced in the name of precisely these people (who are most likely to be excluded).
Public Distribution System
Stop the PDS system :- Now Govt. should stop PDS system in India. We all are know that only powerful peoples are availing all the benefits of PDS system and subsidy. There is lots of persons who are paying income tax and getting BPL facility and using Ration Cards. We should use UID to divert subsidy in actual beneficiary at his/her UID account so that he can buy grain, rice and sugar from other departmental stores. The subsidy (It is will be in point) will directly deduct from his/her account according to his/her family unit and he /She can't convert this subsidy into money. Through this channel the BPL holder will get lots of benefits like, No need to go @ Fair Price Shop during working Day, Any time shop from any departmental store, No need to setup fair price shop, It saves transportation cost & Manpower, No need to store buffer stock, Actual person will get benefit, No black marketing and lots of other benefits.
Today we are living in 21st century and we have not any information about the UID cards. We know that it is a use full for all Indians who is living in India and abroad. Now UID has not cleared that they will make UID card for NRI and foreigners. Because if we are providing UID to our entire motive is defeating. How do you identify the person that he/she is Indian, Brazilian, Paki or Bangladesi because all's color are same and they can speak local language easily and what about the foreigner nationalist who is working in India?
Biometric identification -
UID Is being tried out on such a huge scale for the first time. In a country where identities are a dime a dozen, Bangladeshi workers work with abandon and families own half of the CWG contracts - biometric identification would go a long way in making business, governance and law and order administration easier. As we mentioned earlier, hygiene in defining the scope, scalability and updatability will go miles in achieving better results.
Political Issues
Unjustifiable Costs:
The current costs are estimated at whopping Rs.45,000 crores. And this is probably a gross underestimate. Operationalising the UID scheme on the ground for NREGA and the public distribution system would require placing fingerprint readers at every panchayat office and every ration shop. The total costs of placing fingerprint readers in each PDS outlet and in each of India's 600,000 villages have not been taken into account in official cost calculations.
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Economic Issues.
UID scheme is sought to be justified on the basis of deliverables to the downtrodden. It is doubtful whether Aadhaar will boost the country's economy directly or help reduce the outgo on avoidable subsidies; or whether it will provide a combination of these benefits; or whether the true objective depends on who asks the question. 2. Targeting: Targeting was mooted as a means of saving public expenditure. There are circumstances in which targeting works, but, arguably, India's PDS is not one of them. If the purpose is to channel benefits to the deserving, and only to the deserving, but to all the deserving, then targeting is pointless, because it imposes huge costs on the logistics side (in fact it forces this gigantic and humongously expensive identification exercise, whose timeline is inextricably linked with intrusive initiatives of the former NDA government) for relatively little gain. As noted in other reader responses, the deserving population can go as high as 95%, but even generous estimates put it as upwards of 70%. The Government is trying very hard to contain target numbers below 30 and 40 %, but that is by tweaks to the BPL calculation, instead of paying heed to the grim reality of skewed growth that has imposed a heavy cost on those outside the economic mainstream
Challenges on protection of Individual Privacy
A frequently made assertion about the UID scheme is that the data collected will be limited to a standard set of information like one's name, residence, date of birth, photo, all 10 finger prints and iris image. Once again, this is only a half truth. As mentioned previously, the entire process of enrollment is carried out through Registrars who have absolute freedom to expand the categories of information collected to include data that is entirely orthogonal to the purposes of the UID. This freedom is typically guaranteed by a clause in the MOUs which the UIDAI has signed with Registrars enabling them to collect additional data that "is required for their business or service". Thus, for instance, in Himachal Pradesh, citizens are asked to provide additional details such as information about their ration cards, PAN cards, LPG connection and bank accounts[i]
To employ a telling epithet found in one of the UID documents, the 'Registrars own the process of enrollment'.
3)Privacy is guaranteed
Although the UIDAI makes repeated assertions regarding its intent to respect privacy and ensure data protection, the precise mechanism through which these objectives will be secured is extremely unclear.
To begin with, the entire responsibility for devising schemes for safeguarding information during the collection phase rests entirely on the Registrars. The UIDAI's own responsibility for privacy begins only from the moment the information is transmitted to it by the Registrars - by which time the information has already passed through many hands including the Enrolling Agency, and the Intermediary who passes on information from the Registrar to the UIDAI.
Rather than setting out an explicit redressal mechanism and a liability regime for privacy violations, the UID's documents stop at loosely describing the responsibility of the Registrars as a 'fiduciary duty' towards the resident/citizen's information. The Registrars are tasked with maintaining records of the data collected for a minimum period of six months. No maximum period is specified and Registrars are free to make what use of the data they see fit.
In addition, the Registrars are mandated to keep copies of all documents collected from the Resident either in physical or scanned copies "till the UIDAI finalizes its document storage agency."[ii]
The 'Data Protection and Security Guidelines' which the UIDAI requires all Registrars to observe merely contains pious injunctions calling on them to observe care at all stages of data collection and to develop appropriate internal policies. There is mention of the desirability of external audits and periodic reporting mechanisms, but the details of these schemes are left to the individual Registrar to draw up.
Although the Draft National Identification Authority of India Bill penalizes the intentional disclosure or dissemination of identity information collected in the course of enrollment or authentication, this does not guard against accidental leaks and does not mandate the service providers to positively employ heightened security procedures. Prosecution of offences under the Act can only proceed with the sanction of the UID Authority, which further burdens the task of criminal enforcement in these cases and would make it difficult for individuals to obtain redress quickly. The total absence of a provision for civil remedies against Registrars makes it unlikely that they will take the task of protecting privacy seriously.
In other words, the individual's right to privacy is only as strong as the weakest link in the elaborate chain of information collection, processing and storage.
4) The UIDAI will not disclose any information and will only authenticate information with Yes/No answers
This is another of the frequently misleading claims made by the UID Authority. Thus, for instance, in April, 2010, in response to a question in the course of an interview, Nandan Nilekani said "UID itself has very limited fields, it has only four or five fields - name, address, date of birth, sex and all that. But it also does not supply this data to anybody. .. the only authentication you can get from our system is a yes or no. So, you can't query and say what's this guys name or what's his date of birth, you can't get all that."[iii]
This statement is, however belied by many of the UIDAI's own documents.
The draft NIA Bill, for instance, permits the Authority to issue regulations on the sharing of "the information of aadhaar number holders, with their written consent, with such agencies engaged in delivery of public benefits and public services as the Authority may by order direct". In practice, prior "written consent" for sharing is obtained from the resident as a matter of course at the time of enrollment itself, and it is impossible to obtain an Aadhar number without consenting to sharing by the UID Authority.[iv] In practice, in India, a large number of forms will be filled in by assistants and the written consent box will be ticked as a matter of course without the resident understanding the full implications of her "consent".
The draft NIA Bill permits the authority to "make any disclosure of information (including identity information) made in the interests of national security in pursuance of a direction to that effect issued by an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary or equivalent in the Central Government after obtaining approval of the Minister in charge". There is nothing in the Act that requires that this information be made available on an individual basis - in other words, it is possible for the data to be shared en-masse with any agency "in the interests of national security".
There is nothing preventing "Registrars" who carry out the actual data collection functions from sharing this information with anyone they choose. Thus, for instance, the Aadhar information collected during the exercise of compiling the National Population Register will can be shared in whichever manner the Registrar General of India chooses - irrespective of what the UIDAI does with that information.
So, while ordinarily, the UIDAI would not authenticate information other than giving Yes/No responses, there are mechanisms already in place that presume that all this information will be made available, on demand, to whichever agency that happens to be interested.
In fact, there is the implicit danger that sooner than later the original idea of inclusiveness could be turned on its head by denying benefits to people who don't have the Aadhaar! "There is nothing to ensure that you will continue to receive the same benefits like those who have the UID number. The claim that it is not mandatory is legally correct. But in practice it would not be," said Prof Sridhar Krishnaswamy of W B University for Juridical Sciences.
It is a fundamental premise that data subjects ought to have "inalienable moral rights" about the "integrity" of the data collected about them. But even as UID is one of the best things that could have happened to deepen the democratic process in our society, the often un-remarked fact is that the project has also become the biggest industrial collector of personal information. Considering the size and heterogeneity of the Indian population, it becomes as big as Google, and the implications of this are quite frightening. The UID draft bill, which has to be cleared by Parliament for it to become law, has only perfunctorily looked at the dangers posed by such huge and centralized collection of data. It glosses over the issue, content with making conservative noises about "the interlinking of databases". This only shows how casual our policy makers, even the most enlightened of them, are towards the whole issue of safeguarding privacy.
The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has analyzed the draft UID bill in considerable depth. They have identified three main areas where the bill needs to be drastically reworked: (i) plugging all loopholes which would enable corporate organizations from accessing information from the Aadhar database for their own commercial or R & D purposes; (ii) stipulating a maximum period for the data to be stored; (iii) to be transparent about the methods it uses to collect, store and disseminate data.
Prof Krishnaswamy agreed that the UID bill has not taken the corporate threat seriously enough. He contends that the UID authorities should take small, concrete steps that would act as effective safeguards. "In the mobile phone segment, user information is stored only for six months. Now, the government is proposing a similar time cap for ISP too. But when it comes to UID there is no such time limit. It means personal information could be held perpetually," he explained. All that UID Assistant Director A K Pandey had to say to this was, "if that is it, then we have to live with it."
Another worrying aspect of the proposed bill, according to Usha Ramanathan, an activist and expert on identity and digital issues, is its failure to fix accountability on the main players including enrollers, outsourcing companies, and the UDAI authority itself. "The data collector and data controller should be equally held responsible for the protection of data," she said. However, UID authorities themselves are of the view that the apprehensions are being overplayed. Pandey maintained that there was nothing in the UID that would compromise the privacy of individuals. "You go to a bank or the LIC office and you give whatever information they ask you. But when it comes to UID alone you say the information you give could be dangerous. We don't quite understand this," he retorted. He played down the fears that in the central data storage vital information could go corrupt. "We have taken adequate measures to protect it. We will have a backup," he said.
The issue of transparency of data collection and storage remains. The CIS analysts feel that the UID should put out a synopsis of the algorithms it will use in collating and protecting data so that the public at large can be reassured of the firewalls that are in place. Then there is also the issue of not having concrete provisions in the UID bill to deal with special cases like whistleblowers and victims of abuse whose identities need to be protected even more carefully.
The UID authority also bypasses the question of whether it is confusing data protection with the larger issue of protection of privacy. A person's identity is more than her date of birth, surname, religion, fingerprint or even the sum of these. Such information is basically data and allows governments or corporate bodies to provide a person a nominal identity, one that is indispensable if she is to be part of a socio-political system. The state and corporate entities conveniently deny a person her self, thereby reducing her to a subject instead of seeing each individual as a thinking, acting agency.
Be that as it may, right now the concern of civil society is to make at least protection of data as foolproof as possible. Aadhaar is just one of the projects that pose a threat to the privacy of individual citizens. There is the broader problem of how the Internet and mobile phones, the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and the widespread use of credit and debit cards has led to blatant misuse of personal information gathered online, sharing of consumer data without consent and the state's own Big Brother surveillance. The need for an effective privacy law in India is imperative.
How the card can be multipurpose for us:
Debit Card (Before transaction the person has to enter its last four digits of virtual Debit cards)
Credit Card (before transaction the person have to enter its last four digits of virtual cards)
No need to keep huge foreign currency or Indian rupee in India.
Bank Account opening, No need to file any paper just swipe your and guarantor's UID card.
In NREGA/MNREGA the contractor will file your card code in his attendance register and you will get your payment in your bank account.
Employer just enter his/ her UID at the time of joining, his/ her all record will update with current employer.
Just fill only your UID card no. in Online Tax returns; it will automatically deduct your tax after rebate (LIC, 80G, and Investment). Here no need to get refund and govt. can save thousands of Cr. Rupees as refund interest.
During the shopping in your area you have to swipe your card and insert the pin for transactions. For this banks have to reduce transition charges till 0.1% or free.
This card will be our driving license. On this card a picture will be published of authorized driving vehicle. (White car for pvt., and yellow car for commercial).
Our all the personal records like, height, finger prints and education will be feed available in it.
Card holder can cast his/ her vote at any where in India through ATM or any information kiyosk with the help of this card. (The person will enter its card in voting machine and soon all candidate lists will be available of his/ her locality in touch panel voting machine.
No one cay buy or sell any property without UID card. Through it we can control the black money and confirm that how much property is belongs to with this person. Govt. can provide subsidy to whom have not any flat or property and get extra tax who have already flat or property.
Through this card govt. will deduct Electricity bill, Water bill, house tax or other bills itself. No need to go anywhere to submit your bill. (It should be applicable first in A B and C category of Cities).
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Recommendation to address the Data privacy concerns.
Allaying privacy fears surrounding 'Aadhar', the Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani today said the project would in no way put at risk citizens' security and rights.
Delivering a lecture on 'Analysing and Envisioning India,' Nilekani said having an Aadhar number in no way puts the resident in a security risk or intrudes privacy.
"The data collected of the individual by means of biometric system will only be for the sake of their identification and access to other facilities like availing bank loans, being part of the PDS system and others. There is no way other agencies or non-concerned parties having access to the Aadhar data base," Nilekani said.
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He said if anybody wanted to misuse personal information about people then they could do it even now as most information about people are already available with numerous agencies like banks, post offices, internet etc.
He asserted that the 12-digit Aadhar number will not have much personalised information about the resident for anyone to misuse.
It is heartening to see that the talk is finally resulting in the walk. With Mr. Nilekani heading this project, there was never a question of "if" but "when". We had panned some aspects of the UID/Aadhar Project to good measure. We still believe there is a long way to go for this to become a part of the mainstream like the Social Security Number (SSN) in the US - but this is the first step and a big one.
Aadhaar is being backed to the hilt by the Government. Leadership & its intent is the single most important factor which would determine the success or failure of a project of this stature. And till now the government has been behind Aadhar, closely. That is a good sign.
Mr Nilekani - With him at the helm, a lot of things are automatically assumed. As some internal noises suggest, he runs a tight ship and that is saying something especially when you are working with government officials.
The effect of the first movers - As they are starting out from a rural example, the first few success stories (e.g. making a clear connection between NREGA and Aadhar ID - thereby reducing corruption) etc. would go a long way in demonstrating the efficacy of this mechanism. That said however, it wouldn't be hard to guess the challenge and cost of reaching out beyond the line of the digital divide.
bsite lists a press release (in a doc format) which mentions a few other showcase use cases. We quote:
"The Aadhaar number will also enable the delivery of various services at the grass root level in a cost effective and efficient way. An example of such an Aadhaar-enabled service is in banking for the poor. With the Aadhaar number, residents will be able to easily fulfill the Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements of banks. They will be able to verify their identity through the Aadhaar number to banks both in person or remotely, using a mobile device. As a result, banks will be able to provide branchless banking services to hard-to-reach rural regions, and the use of electronic transactions will further bring down costs. Similarly, electronic transfers of benefits and entitlements can be enabled through Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of the beneficiaries."
The project has a lot of roadblocks - many of which are artificial (i.e. seemingly because of hunger for hype) and can surely be overcome. However in a generic sense, the few major challenges that we see upfront:-
a) The first one we assessed was that of the definition of UID/Aadhaar:
Who can get an Aadhaar?
An individual who is a resident in India and satisfies the verification process laid down by the UIDAI can get an Aadhaar."
So this means the project excludes Indian citizens who are residing outside of national boundaries, LoC etc. and that includes the Indian Foreign Service officers, embassy staff and high value NRIs who bring great value to Indian Business & International presence.
b) The Indian propensity to game the system - This is one major issue in India (not only in UID) where the patches use more rubber than the tire itself. A lot of checks and balances need to be built into the system - especially when easily "gameable" systems like mobile phones etc may be a part of the UID concept.
c) Remembering and tracking - As the numbers won't be cards, remembering and storing these numbers needs a novel approach. Tattooing (sic)?
d) Access to right authorities and on a need to know basis - While the statement above encompasses a lot of services, the same would require a high degree of confidentiality and data access rules. The SSN concept was also misused in many ways before the Government stepped in with a lot of ground rules.
e) Religious and regional profiling - In diverse country like India, this is critical. Any advantages to be gained by regional number allocations would soon be overruled by the problems arising out of communal concerns.
d) Biometric identification working - As is often the case, the biggest advantage might turn out to be the largest detriment. In this case, biometric identification (after UID issue for verification) might be a weak link.
Lastly in a country where the social fabric is stretched with issues like the Babri Masjid and the shame of the Commonwealth Games - this is a welcome change. This is a large step in the right direction and we eagerlyThe drawbacks of iris scanning include greater initial cost and the fact that it's still a relatively untried technology (some trials, for example, have found a much greater rate of false matches than originally claimed). Civil liberties campaigners have also voiced privacy concerns-that future iris-scanning technology could be developed that will allow people to be tracked covertly (at a distance of some meters) without either their knowledge or cooperation. look forward to the change this promises to bring to our country.
The fact that the UID is not compulsory and the fact more than 500 million Indians have mobile phones-it'll takes years before that many people get their Aadhaar-that are already capable of being tracked and profiled is ignored.
1. Privacy: Very nobly, UIDAI has mentioned privacy as an issue, and then moved on regardless, treating it as Someone Else's Problem (the caps are deliberate, the reference is to Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). However, even a weak privacy law is likely to make several processes within the overall UIDAI protocol illegal. In fact, designing a process without taking account of the environment within which that process will work is just bad engineering. It is what some kinds of businesspeople and politicians do (Ready, Shoot, Aim), not good engineers.
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What makes this situation patently ridiculous is that better governance can bring about huge improvements in PDS deliveries, because it is widely recognised (but only outside of UID apologists) that most leakages take place within the logistics chain, and not at the edge of the cloud. The leakage figures vary widely between states, reflecting the level of skew as well as the efficiency of governance. Simple and inexpensive remedies have worked very well already in some states. In addition, the BPL identification exercise is being refined this year.
Between these two initiatives (which are already underway, so no fresh allocation of money is needed) much of the rationale for allotment of UIDs (if, as advertised, the purpose is to minimise leakages from the public beneficial system for the economically excluded) is already taken care.
3. The author argues that Ramkumar's main planks are a creeping security state (the popular term is "police state" - why avoid the words?) and a retreating development perspective, and says both are debatable. This may be true, but, firstly, a police state is incompatible with a participatory democracy. The author is free to argue for other forms of government, like anyone else, but at least keep the lines clearly drawn. Secondly, the development perspective is also part and parcel of a participatory democracy: a government of, by and for the people, in which all are equal. Huge economic disparities are anathema to this ideal. India right now boasts of several ignoble global records: economic disparity is one of the worst, where the ratio between highest earning and lowest is of the order of hundreds, even within corporations, and much worse for the general population, where as many as 70% could be living on an average of Rs 20 per day. Yes, upwards of 700 mn people, not some abstract quibble between percentages and absolute numbers.
4. Lastly, something not central to either Ramkumar's argument or to its rebuttal: the UID scheme as it stands today, a simple number, whose unique association with an individual can be verified using technology, overlooks the fact that this technology is neither in place, nor is there a roadmap for implementing it. In fact, achieving it is a huge exercise, but aside from a government sponsored connectivity plan meant to link together government offices across the country, nothing is on the anvil today. How UIDAI expects ration shops (PDS endpoints) and random work sites (NREGS endpoints) to be connected online to a central database, is unknown.
Rather than wondering what Prof Ramkumar is smoking, as reader Mr Kannan asks, one must rather look elsewhere for sources of fantasy and surreal thinking, one of which is backed by Rs 42,000 cr of an unilaterally undebated budgetary allocation. A heady mix, but not one worthy of a nation trying hard to establish itself on a solid footing, overcoming centuries of economic exclusion.
i can see you are writing too much and hence not even reading what others are saying.
1. on accessing the aadhar data center.
everyone perfectly knows how data is stored in Aadhar. but accessing that information is from the govt offices across the country. That means govt officials now decide the identity of a person by pinging a system that lies elsewhere. copies of any id card in the possession of the citizen become secondary if not useless. Now the govt official in expectation of a bribe can harass the citizen claiming that a query on his/her name resulted in a negative response from the datacenter and hence he/she is a imposter. Try going to any rto/aro/tehsil/taluk office etc in the country and see how citizens get treated by officials.
2. with regard to the citizen's group, i clearly stated its "any card".
namely Voter ID card and ration card. its really a nightmare for poor people to get these cards. bribery and political connections rule the ration cards. i have myself given form 6, given instructions and sent people to the AROs office and few weeks later their name doesn't get added in the updated voter list. i and many people in the "upscale" neighborhoods don't face such problems. becos the officials think we must be legitimate or they could even fear phone calls from higher ups if they mess with someone important/informed/proactive.
and in the case of the UID, poor citizens can be denied a number too. how do you think thousands of muslim names disappear from electoral rolls? local level officials in connivance with political leaders can easily do this. possession of a voter id card is meaningless if officials remove your name from the voter rolls. Bangalore has 7 million voters in the rolls when the entire voting population cannot be more than abt 5 million!! a UID number has to get into the database through the hand-(i)-work of officials in every village/town of the country. imagine that.
3. possibility of caste/gender atrocities very much exist with UID.
its very common for Sarpanchs/VAOs to deny ration/pension/antodaya cards to real beneficiaries, create fictitious ones and fill their pockets. almost all the states have more ration cards than families. And its also fairly common that the real beneficiaries who disappear from the system are often lower caste people (bpl card mostly) and women (old age pension mostly but also cycle, pregnancy benefits, ladli lakshmi etc). now these people will be even more dependent on a govt official to look up their identity on the Aadhar database and recognize it. good luck with that.
Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) and other organisations have expressed their dissent against the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) - the nodal agency responsible for implementing Aadhaar.
The Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC)) had also raised concerns, objecting to the linking of the UIDAI project to the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.
In a letter addressed to Rural Development Minister C P Joshi last week, Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, members of the CEGC and NAC raised objections to the ministry's decision to link UID to job cards without consulting the council.
[...]
Dreze told Business Standard that UID is a national security project in the garb of a social policy initiative. "I am opposed to the UID project on grounds of civil liberties. Let us not be naive. This is not a social policy initiative - it is a national security project."
