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, September 13, 2017

12030 - Police bust UP gang for cloning fingerprints of Aadhaar operators - Money Control

Sep 12, 2017 02:08 PM IST | Source: Moneycontrol.com



The incident once again highlights vulnerabilities in the Union government's identity project.

Moneycontrol News

The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday busted a gang from Lucknow for allegedly stealing fingerprints of Aadhaar enrolment operators.

The gang cloned fingerprints of operators to access nodal body Unique Identification Authority of India's data in order to create fake Aadhaar cards, according to multiple media reports. Apart from the fingerprints, the gang also managed to devise a way to bypass retina scanning.

The arrests have been made in connection with an FIR filed by the UIDAI on August 16 this year.

The incident once again highlights vulnerabilities in the Union government's identity project.

UIDAI had initially introduced fingerprint security for Aadhaar. However, when hackers started cloning fingerprints, the iris scanner was introduced as a part of the authentication process.
With hackers creating a system to bypass this second layer of security as well, the police have decided to conduct a "security audit" of the enrollment process.

As per the current system, while enrolling a new user, an authorised operator accesses the system using fingerprints and retina scan.

In this case, the accused used images of fingerprints of operators and printed them on butter paper. These were then placed on a sheet of light-sensitive resin and exposed to ultra-violet light. These, at the end, looked like a rubber stamp that were pressed down on a biometric machine.
The hackers then developed a software to bypass the retina scan.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology official told India Legal that that while Aadhaar is a social revolution, India needs a cyber security system to protect its data.

"As things stand now, there are too many holes in the security set up which are being exploited by hackers. We have to prepare ourselves for a flood of cyber-related crime once the linkage happens. To make matters worse, no one is clear about the volume of Aadhaar data that has already been stolen or accessed by the wrong people,” the official said.

Security concerns surrounding Aadhaar have been growing of late.

According to government data, nearly 164 government websites were hacked in 2015. Between November 2016 and June 2017, a total of 50 cyber incidents affected 19 financial organisations, Union minister Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said.

A recent report by Deloitte on Cyber Regulation in Asia Pacific states that while the government’s Digital India is a good initiative, it does need a cyber security framework.
Ahir further said that the government has set aside Rs 1,000 crore for a research and development fund for cyber security. The funds will be used for upgrading technological capacity over the next five years.

Recently, a report quoting WikiLeaks data said that devices used to record biometric data for Aadhaar could have been compromised.

However, the UIDAI denied of any such leak and said that the biometric information is protected by best available security measures. The government said that the data is stored in UIDAI servers that are fool-proof. The data centres are protected physically as well as hardware and the devices are checked multiple times to ensure safety.