Aadhaar or UID: What and Why?

"...I have never known legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world. I know that indentured Indians in Natal are subject to a drastic system of passes, but these poor fellows can hardly be classed as free men."
Mahatma Gandhi

"...giving of finger prints, required by the Ordinance, was quite a novelty in South Africa. With a view to seeing some literature on the subject, I read a volume on finger impressions by Mr. Henry, a police officer, from which I gathered that finger prints were required by law only from criminals."
Mahatma Gandhi

“The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy”.Alex Carey, a noted Australian activist.

A project that proposes to give every
resident a “unique identity number” is
a matter of great concern for those working
on issues of food security, NREGA, migration,
technology, decentralisation, constitutionalism,
civil liberties and human rights. The
process of setting up the Unique Identifi cation
Authority of India (UIDAI) has resulted
in very little, if any, discussion about this
project and its effects and fallout. It is
intended to collect demographic data about
all residents in the country.
Before it goes any further, we consider
it imperative that the following be done:
(i) Do a feasibility study: There are claims
made in relation to the project, about what
it can do for the PDS and NREGA, for instance,
which does not refl ect any understanding
of the situation on the ground.
The project documents do not say what
other effects the project may have, including
its potential to be intrusive and violative
of privacy, who may handle the data.
(ii) Do a cost-benefi t analysis: It is reported
that the UIDAI estimates the project will
cost Rs 45,000 crore to the exchequer in
the next four years. This does not seem to
include the costs that will be incurred
by the registrars, enrollers, the internal
systems costs that the PDs system will have
to budget if it is to be able to use the UID,
the estimated cost to the end user and to
the number holder. (iii) In a system such as
this, a mere statement that the UIDAI will
deal with the security of the data is
obviously insuffi cient. How does the
UIDAI propose to deal with data theft?
(iv) The involvement of fi rms such as
Ernst & Young and Accenture raises further
questions about who will have access
to the data, and what that means to the
people of India.
The questions have been raised which
have not been addressed so far, including
those about:
(i) Privacy: It is only now that the Department
of Personnel and Training is said to
be working on a draft of a privacy law, but
nothing is out for discussion, (ii) Surveillance:
This technology, and the existence
of the UID number, and its working, could
result in increasing the potential for surveillance,
(iii) Profi ling, (iv) Tracking, and
(v) Convergence, by which those with access
to state power, as well as companies,
could collate information about each individual
with the help of the UID number.
National IDs have been abandoned in
the US, Australia and the uk. The reasons
have predominantly been costs and privacy.
If it is too expensive for the US with a
population of 308 million, and the UK
with 61 million people, and Australia with
21 million people, it is being asked why
India thinks it can prioritise its spending in
this direction. In the UK the home secretary
explained that they were abandoning the
project because it would otherwise be
“intrusive bullying” by the State, and that
the government intended to be the “servant”
of the people, and not their “master”. Is
there a lesson in it for us?
This is a project that could change the
status of the people in this country, with
effects on our security and consti tutional
rights. So a consideration of all aspects of
the project should be undertaken with
this in mind.
We, therefore, ask that the project be
halted; a feasibility study be done covering
all aspects of this issue; experts be tasked
with studying its constitutionality; the law
on privacy be urgently worked on (this will
affect matters way beyond the UID project);
a cost-benefi t analysis be done; a public,
informed debate be conducted before any
such major change be brought in.


Justice V R Krishna Iyer, Romila Thapar,
K G Kannabiran, S R Sankaran,
Upendra Baxi, Shohini Ghosh,
Bezwada Wilson, Trilochan Sastry,
Jagdeep Chhokar, Justice A P Shah,
and others.
(Based on a statement issued on 28 September)


Aadhaar, meaning ‘foundation’ or ‘base’ (ironically al-Qa'ida!) is India’s attempt to provide an Unique Identity (UID) number to every person residing in india (and presumably every Indian citizen whether living in India or not).

The Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) will collect the following data fields and biometrics for issuing a UID

Name
Date of birth
Gender
Father's/ Husband's/ Guardian's name and UID (optional for adult residents)
Mother's/ Wife's/ Guardian's name and UID (optional for adult residents)
Introducer's name and UID ( in case of lack of documents)
Address
All ten finger prints
Photograph
Both iris scans.
As per the report of Demographic Data Standards and Verification Procedure (DDSVP) Committee set up by UIDAI report of Demographic Data Standards and Verification Procedure (DDSVP) Committee set up by UIDAI, the address details to be collected from the citizens will have the following fields: Building, Street, Village-Town-City, District, State, Pin Code etc. As per the Know Your Resident (KYR) plus concept of UIDAI, additional fields could be included by the Registrar. It is suggested that the name of the relevant Village Panchayat (VP) may be added as an additional data field.

UIDAI has been set up to manage this task.

When India’s UID project was set up and the well respected Nandan Nilekani took over as the helmsman UIDAI, his senior—and perhaps more respected—colleague at Infosys Narayana Murthy said that it was like a younger brother leaving home. In the months since then, UIDAI has turned out to be contentious: from those who say that it is the one sure shot solution to india’s problems—from security to poverty allieviation—to those who warn that it is more of a big brother act, gutting the constitution—and everything else—in its path.

There has been a lot of hype about the new technological magic bullet that will suddenly ‘provide an identity to every Indian’ with Nilekani (*) even proclaiming that UID isn't just a number, it is an identity, result in ‘financial inclusion’ and enhanced security. Some of the more fantastic claims include better jobs, better pay and access to banks.

The retort has been from the dismissive ‘hey, didn’t we have names before?! And weren’t passports and ration cards issued based on that?’, to the more measured position that each of these claims is patently false, and known to those pushing for this colossal technological, financial and administrative scam. Given the circumstances of poverty and ignorance of large sections of Indian citizens, it is akin to grabbing the food from a child’s mouth.

UIDAI has hired five experts to help communicate different messages to different sections of the Indian population for a buy in. Due to government regulations, the five specialists advise in an individual capacity and not as representatives of their organizations.

Let us look at each of these claims one by one. We need to ask the more fundamental questions such as Do we need this? What is the problem we are trying to solve? Is this a solution to the defined problem? What has been the global experience? Is this just a solution looking for a problem?