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

Thursday, February 15, 2018

12800 - Critics of Aadhaar Say They Are Under Surveillance, Allege Government Harassment - The Wire




Opponents of Aadhaar have said it could be used as an instrument of state surveillance while data security and privacy regulations are still to be framed.

A man goes through the process of eye scanning for the Unique Identification database system at a registration centre in New Delhi, India, January 17, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Saumya Khandelwal

Mumbai: Researchers and journalists who have identified loopholes in India’s massive national identity card project have said they have been slapped with criminal cases or harassed by government agencies because of their work.

Last month, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) filed a criminal case against The Tribune for publishing a story that said access to the card’s database could be bought for 500 rupees.

Reuters spoke to eight additional researchers, activists and journalists who have complained of being harassed after writing about Aadhaar. They said UIDAI and other government agencies were extremely sensitive to criticism of the Aadhaar programme.

Aadhaar is becoming integral to the digitisation of India’s economy, with over 1.1 billion users and the world’s biggest database.

Indians have been asked to furnish their Aadhaar numbers for a host of transactions including accessing bank accounts, paying taxes, receiving subsidies, acquiring a mobile number, settling a property deal and registering a marriage.

The Tribune said one of its reporters purchased access to a portal that could provide data linked to any Aadhaar cardholder.
The UIDAI complaint, filed with the police cyber cell in New Delhi, accused the newspaper, the reporter and others of cheating by impersonation, forgery and unauthorised access to a computer network.

Media associations sharply criticised the action – the Editors Guild of India said UIDAI’s move was “clearly meant to browbeat a journalist whose story was of great public interest. It is unfair, unjustified and a direct attack on the freedom of the press.”

In response, the agency said “an impression was being created in media that UIDAI is targeting the media or whistleblowers or shooting the messenger.”


“That is not at all true. It is for the act of unauthorised access, criminal proceedings have been launched,” it said in a statement.

Osama Manzar, the director of the Digital Empowerment Foundation, a New Delhi-based NGO, called the government’s prickliness “a clear sign that rather than it wanting to learn how to make Aadhaar a tool of empowerment, it actually wants to use it as a coercive tool of disempowerment”.

Data leakage
Last May, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), an independent Indian advocacy group, published a report that government websites had inadvertently leaked several million identification numbers from the project.

UIDAI sent the CIS a legal notice within days, said Srinivas Kodali, one of the authors of the report.

The notice alleged that some of the data cited in the report would only be available if the site had been accessed illegally. The UIDAI wrote that the people involved had to be “brought to justice.”

Critics have warned Aadhaar could be used as an instrument of state surveillance while data security and privacy regulations are still to be framed. Credit: PTI

According to Kodali, two more notices followed, addressed to the group’s directors and two researchers, containing more accusations. “They said it was a criminal conspiracy, and demanded that we send individual responses,” he said.

CIS then received questions about its funding from the home ministry section that grants NGOs permission to receive foreign funding, said a source in the group who saw the letter. CIS viewed this as a threat to its funding, the source said.
CIS declined to comment on the notices or on the questions about funding.

UIDAI did not reply to multiple e-mails seeking comment on the accusations about CIS and similar complaints by other activists and journalists, and officials could not be reached by phone. Officials at the Ministry of Information Technology that supervises UIDAI were unreachable by phone.

In a column in the Economic Times in January, Ajay Pandey, the head of the UIDAI, wrote: “The data of all Aadhaar holders is safe and secure. One should not believe rumours or claims made on its so-called ‘breach’.”

R.S. Sharma, the head of India’s telecom regulatory body, said there was an “orchestrated campaign” against Aadhaar as it was against the interests of those who operated in the shadow economy with fictitious names, or were skimming off subsidies.

“It is going to clean up many systems,” Sharma told a television channel last month. “That’s probably one of the reasons why people realise that this is now becoming too difficult or too dangerous for them.”

“That trip to Turkey?”
A Bangalore researcher who contributed to the CIS report said scrutiny by police and government officials was a common occurrence, but harassment was stepped up after it was published.

“Sometimes people from the police station visit you. Other times from the home ministry. It was intimidating,” the researcher said.

The person, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said police officers asked questions like “How was that trip to Turkey?’,” to make it clear the subjects were under surveillance.


When Sameer Kochhar, a social scientist and author of books on Aadhaar, demonstrated how the system’s biometrics safeguards could be bypassed last year, UIDAI filed a police report in New Delhi, a person familiar with the matter said.
Subsequently, Kochhar received at least three notices from the Delhi Police alleging that he had violated 14 sections under three separate laws, the person said.

Kochhar’s lawyer declined comment. Delhi Police officials declined comment.

Critics have warned Aadhaar could be used as an instrument of state surveillance while data security and privacy regulations are still to be framed.

Former central bank governor Raghuram Rajan said last month that the government needed to prove it would protect the privacy of Aadhaar.

“I do think that we have to assure the public that their data is safe,” Rajan said. “All these reports about easy availability of data are worrying and we have to ensure security. We cannot just say trust us, trust us, it’s all secure.”

(Reuters)