This topic has been on my mind for some time. The writing was hastened by an e-mail I got from an NRI friend wanting to know what was this "udi udi thing" that aunt Chitty in Chennai was all excited about. Same day I got a call from good friend Tripta Sen in Delhi, who wanted to know what will happen to her Aadhaar card if she went in for a drastically altered hairstyle.
If you know all about UID click here to go straight to me & Tripta.
Else carry on reading..
What Is It?
The 'unique personal I.D.' project of India, given the vernacular moniker Aadhaar, meaning 'the foundation' or 'the base', is the most ambitious people tagging program ever in the history of mankind.
UIDAI, the unique identity authority, has been set up to create, own and operate a database of all residents. A unique 12 digit random number is allotted to each individual. His photograph, fingerprints and iris are recorded and an Aadhaar card is issued. Some 170 million cards have already been issued. That is 14% of the population.
No one has explored all the ramifications of such an undertaking. The Government obviously has a lot of good things to say about it.
It will enable focussed delivery of benefits and services to the marginalised and the under-privileged. It has the potential to eliminate the large number of fake and duplicate identities in various benefit lists and even employment rolls. "Financial inclusion" of the have-nots is a phrase much bandied about.
Not Everyone Likes It
Such verbiage is normally enough to ensure easy passage of mega budget projects through the legislature. Aadhaar, however, has attracted much opposition but has been rammed through without any meaningful discussion on the costs and benefits or of consequences.
Issues like invasion of privacy, surveillance, profiling, potential misuse and data security have never been adequately discussed or explained.
It is not obligatory to enrol, but those who don't will find life very difficult as a number of benefits, subsidised goods and services will need proof of I.D.
The home ministry which handles internal affairs, one would have thought most in need of such a data base, came out strongly against Aadhaar to start with. They plan their own "National Population Register" to weed out illegal immigrants. Then earlier this year they mysteriously shut up and it was reported that they will cross link their database with Aadhaar.
Eventually, all other lists like voters, tax payers, passports, ration cards, the population register etc will get cross linked to Aadhaar.
Who Runs It
Extremely unusually for India, the Government has roped in a highly respected and successful private sector I.T. technocrat to head the organisation. Some feel he has roped in the government to finance and push through a megalomaniacal venture.
He has the rank of a cabinet minister and is authorised to bypass or cut-through the normal bureaucratic red-tape associated with any governmental creation and/or change. He has put together a crack team to implement and supervise the project. The grunt work of enrolling people has been outsourced to private parties. The home ministry is now a "partner registrar" for certain "sensitive" zones.
The only direct communication from UIDAI to the public has been about the physical process of enrolling. Press lightly to register fingerprints. Don't smile when giving your mug-shot. And the like.
How It Will Work
The Aadhaar database will be accessible from any place in India that has mobile coverage or internet reach.
The Aadhaar card is not a smart card. By itself it has no value, except as a reference tool for your Aadhaar number. What you always carry around, your fingerprints and your iris, will establish your identity. For example, you go to a bank to open an account, or to the polling booth to vote, you present your finger(s) to a machine and there you are.
A hospital should be able to access your entire medical history just by reading your finger prints.
As an itinerant worker you should be able to have your bank account, ration card and health insurance etc. transferred to wherever you choose to go and work in India without getting tied up in paperwork and red tape.
Can the card be duplicated or faked? Easily. But no harm is done. The card by itself accomplishes nothing. The biometric data individually are also not foolproof but taken together you have as good as zero error.
Click here to go to Part 2
If you know all about UID click here to go straight to me & Tripta.
Else carry on reading..
What Is It?
The 'unique personal I.D.' project of India, given the vernacular moniker Aadhaar, meaning 'the foundation' or 'the base', is the most ambitious people tagging program ever in the history of mankind.
UIDAI, the unique identity authority, has been set up to create, own and operate a database of all residents. A unique 12 digit random number is allotted to each individual. His photograph, fingerprints and iris are recorded and an Aadhaar card is issued. Some 170 million cards have already been issued. That is 14% of the population.
No one has explored all the ramifications of such an undertaking. The Government obviously has a lot of good things to say about it.
It will enable focussed delivery of benefits and services to the marginalised and the under-privileged. It has the potential to eliminate the large number of fake and duplicate identities in various benefit lists and even employment rolls. "Financial inclusion" of the have-nots is a phrase much bandied about.
Not Everyone Likes It
Such verbiage is normally enough to ensure easy passage of mega budget projects through the legislature. Aadhaar, however, has attracted much opposition but has been rammed through without any meaningful discussion on the costs and benefits or of consequences.
Issues like invasion of privacy, surveillance, profiling, potential misuse and data security have never been adequately discussed or explained.
It is not obligatory to enrol, but those who don't will find life very difficult as a number of benefits, subsidised goods and services will need proof of I.D.
The home ministry which handles internal affairs, one would have thought most in need of such a data base, came out strongly against Aadhaar to start with. They plan their own "National Population Register" to weed out illegal immigrants. Then earlier this year they mysteriously shut up and it was reported that they will cross link their database with Aadhaar.
Eventually, all other lists like voters, tax payers, passports, ration cards, the population register etc will get cross linked to Aadhaar.
Who Runs It
Extremely unusually for India, the Government has roped in a highly respected and successful private sector I.T. technocrat to head the organisation. Some feel he has roped in the government to finance and push through a megalomaniacal venture.
He has the rank of a cabinet minister and is authorised to bypass or cut-through the normal bureaucratic red-tape associated with any governmental creation and/or change. He has put together a crack team to implement and supervise the project. The grunt work of enrolling people has been outsourced to private parties. The home ministry is now a "partner registrar" for certain "sensitive" zones.
The only direct communication from UIDAI to the public has been about the physical process of enrolling. Press lightly to register fingerprints. Don't smile when giving your mug-shot. And the like.
How It Will Work
The Aadhaar database will be accessible from any place in India that has mobile coverage or internet reach.
The Aadhaar card is not a smart card. By itself it has no value, except as a reference tool for your Aadhaar number. What you always carry around, your fingerprints and your iris, will establish your identity. For example, you go to a bank to open an account, or to the polling booth to vote, you present your finger(s) to a machine and there you are.
A hospital should be able to access your entire medical history just by reading your finger prints.
As an itinerant worker you should be able to have your bank account, ration card and health insurance etc. transferred to wherever you choose to go and work in India without getting tied up in paperwork and red tape.
Can the card be duplicated or faked? Easily. But no harm is done. The card by itself accomplishes nothing. The biometric data individually are also not foolproof but taken together you have as good as zero error.
Click here to go to Part 2
Hi Anil, Very useful blog on this new thing. I have not aadhared myself yet. Not convinced of the usefulness - but then, I resisted getting my mobile phone for 5 years after my children got theirs.
ReplyDeleteRecently, I saw 5 Aadhar cards of a Kerala family - 4 of the photographs were entirely unrecognisable.
Good luck to this grand illusion - which I am afraid is what it is at present.
- KGN
I agree with your comments. We seem to have multiple ID cards and I wonder how effective they are to achieve what they are supposed.We had the PAN card, the KYC norms for MFs and Banks and yet we have thousands who do not have a PAN card. We also have the VOter's election card! My help who is no tax payer had to get a PAN card for some reason. My wife and I had applied after taking an appointment at the local Post Office on June 30th and till date havent received it. When I mentioned this to Mr Nilankeni, he said that it was stuck in the Post Offices who had to inform and issue the cards. To date there are some 8 crore cards yet to be issued out of 20 crores who had registered and they are now registering new applicants without completing what is on hand! The software genius could certainly have used all these records already in the system. I do not understand why we should have biometrics introduced. There are yet people who bypass these so called strict norms when a wanted terrorist is travelling on a passport with a false name of a famous film star. When integrity and honesty is not practiced by a large majority, all these forms of ID are only to trouble the honest!!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and full of useful facts. I suppose the crunch will come if it is made compulsory. presumably, it will need an act of the parliament. The debate will then be more fierce. Personal health data being made available to private companies and insurance companies will worry me. In the UK there have been fierce debate on the subject, and they have gone short of making it compulsory (although the initial intention was that). In Germany people are not worried at all. In the USA, although it is not compulsory (in most states), without it life is impossible.
ReplyDeleteBtw, who is the person in charge? I hear N. Vaidyanathan (or is it Vijayditya?) (your peer at ISI) started the project when he was the Director of a department of the GOI.
UID is good thing for India - where segregation of population with ease would be possible for delivery of benefits (ration for below poverty line, etc). This digitization, however, would come with transparency and allow easy way to plug the loop-holes. This is exact reason why some other cabin-ate Ministers opposing the UID!!
ReplyDelete