PRAFUL BIDWAI
Why Indians should fear the UID
October 12, 2010 10:11 IST
By Praful Bidwai
The Aadhaar or UID project has grave implications for every Indian.
It will enable the government to profile every citizen and track their movements and transactions.
There is no guarantee that intimate personal information -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships etc -- won't be shared with other agencies, warns Praful Bidwai.
An elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity numbers in a tribal district of Maharashtra [ Images ] by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] and Congress President Sonia Gandhi [ Images ].
At its core is the pretence that giving a unique 12-digit number to each underprivileged citizen will achieve what hundreds of welfare schemes, and numerous efforts to control corruption, have failed to accomplish: Namely, pilferage-free delivery of services to the poor.
Aadhaar, meaning support, foundation or sustenance, is being projected as a magic wand -- just what the poor need from a benevolent State. The paternalism cannot be missed.
Aadhaar's legitimacy is pinned on benefiting the underprivileged. But as with all magic wands, this could prove illusory.
Aadhaar is supposed to ensure that grain will not be diverted from the public distribution system, and that corruption will be eliminated from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in which 15 to 20 percent of funds are pilfered.
This is to be achieved by collecting basic information (name, address, parents' names, date of birth, etc) and biometric data (photographs, all 10 fingerprints, iris scans) for each resident.
This will be used to generate a UID to conduct all manner of transactions: From buying rations on below-poverty-line cards, to NREGA enrolment, to opening a bank account. It's claimed that the UID will ensure non-duplication and hence eliminate leakage. As we see below, this claim is excessive, if not specious.
Aadhaar's origin and real purpose are rooted in 'national security', including surveillance, profiling and tracking of citizens.
The UIDs will be fed into a database to be shared with Natgrid (National Intelligence Grid), which includes 11 security and intelligence agencies (Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, CBI, Central Boards of Excise and Direct Taxes, etc).
Natgrid, to be created by next May, will provide real-time access into 21 databases -- including bank account details, credit card transactions, driving licences, and travel records.
An intelligence official has been quoted as saying, "Once you feed in a person's name, you will get all the details about him, across all the databases."
These include the colour of his/her car, the traffic fines to be paid, and the last time he/she paid by card for a late-night dinner.
However, Aadhaar is being dishonestly marketed as a social security-related scheme. Eminent economist and food rights activist Jean Dreze deplores this.
From the right of the spectrum, former Intelligence Bureau director A K Doval welcomes the deception, and admits that Aadhaar was 'intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people... Now, it is being projected as more development-oriented, lest it ruffle any feathers.'
This deception violates transparency and public trust. Yet, the chair of the Unique Identification Authority of India [ Images ] (UIDAI), Nandan Nilekani, claims Aadhaar is about 'inclusivity... a better quality of public service delivery, it's about giving people, who have been denied identity, a chance.'
The claim is carried to farcical extremes by Aadhaar's apologists, who say it is the only protection for India's 250 million migrant workers against summary eviction.
This is rich, given the Indian State's record in displacing 45 million people since Independence and in bundling 100,000 poor families out of Delhi [ Images ] and forcibly 'repatriating' migrant workers for the Commonwealth Games [ Images ].
But we are asked to believe that the State has suddenly turned benign and wants to deliver services efficiently to the poor through Aadhaar.
The NIAI starts with the premise that 'in many areas (NREGA) wages continue to be paid in cash' and there is massive duplication of job cards. This is factually wrong.
Since 2008, NREGA wages have been paid into bank accounts, reducing corruption. Today, 83 percent of job-cardholders have accounts.
Yet, as economist-activist Reetika Khera points out, 'Three ways of siphoning off money remain -- extortion, collusion and fraud. Extortion means that when 'inflated' wages are withdrawn by labourers from their account, the middleman turns extortionist and takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages... Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers...'
UID can at best help prevent 'fraud', not collusion or extortion, which are far more common. A great deal of corruption is not wage-related, but materials-related. Sarpanchs collude with officials to create fictitious records of building-material supplies.
Aadhaar cannot tackle this. Only transparent accounting and supervision and verification can.
Similarly, the UIDAI attributes PDS leakages to duplicate ration cards. But duplication has dropped significantly after computerisation of records and hologrammed cards. It is as low as two percent in Tamil Nadu and eight percent in Chhattisgarh.
Khera says, 'There are two major sources of leakage within the PDS -- one, diversion of grain, en route to the village ration shop. Dealers then appear helpless saying that they have been issued less... Two, dealers undersell (for example, only 25 kg out of the 35 kg entitlement) and yet make people testify on official records that they got their full quota.'
Neither leakage can be tackled by Aadhaar. Unless people have the choice to go to another dealer, they will remain in the grip of the corrupt shopkeeper. But this needs a new supply-chain management system.
That demolishes the claim of portability of benefits. The claim of inclusivity is similarly vacuous. The authority's document says that 'the NREGS programme can be used to enrol residents into the UID programme.' But this cannot produce inclusion.
It only admits that Aadhaar needs the existing PDS and NREGA databases to enrol people. The PDS-NREGA do not need Aadhaar.
If the government wants to reach those excluded from social programmes like homeless temporary migrants, it can open community kitchens.
In fact, by making Aadhaar a condition for delivering services, the government will exclude those who don't have UIDs. This is perverse. It ialso contradictory.
On the one hand, UIDAI officials claim Aadhaar will accurately target the poor and break the barriers that prevent them from accessing services.
On the other, UIDAI openly says it's 'in the identity business. The responsibility of tracking beneficiaries and... service delivery will continue to remain with the respective agencies. The UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements.'
The Aadhaar project has grave civil liberty implications. It will enable the government to profile citizens and track their movements and transactions.
There is no guarantee that intimately personal details -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships, anonymous donations -- won't be shared with other agencies.
The designated registrars include private operators as well as state governments, the Life Insurance Corporation and banks.
Also involved are multinational firms like Ernst and Young and Accenture. Already, Apollo Hospital has applied for managing the health records in the Aadhaar database.
That is not all. The draft NIAI Bill says the authority will maintain details of every request for identity authentication and that identity information may be disclosed in the interests of 'national security'. These clauses permit the tracking of citizens.
Experience shows that whenever the government gets excessive authority, it is misused. That is what happened with our anti-terrorism acts and is happening with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act in numerous states.
Excessive reliance on technology, especially to tackle special problems like corruption, can be disastrous. Technologies can fail.
Biometric readings can go wrong if power supply fails -- as happens virtually daily in most of India. Biometric readings may produce misleading results, as the authority admits, 'in Indian environmental conditions (extremely hot and humid climate and facilities without air-conditioning).'
People with low-quality fingerprints (construction workers) and with cataract/corneal problems can pose problems for fingerprints and iris scans.
Between 10 and 60 million people could be excluded from UID due to such errors.
Aadhaar poses serious data security problems. ID card schemes, says a London [ Images ] School of Economics study, are 'too complex', technically unproven and 'unsafe'.
All kinds of supposedly secure databases/Web sites, including those of India's defence ministry and the Pentagon [ Images ], have been hacked. Data theft and transfer to intelligence agencies or corporations have potentially horrendous consequences.
That is one reason why many countries including the UK, US and Australia [ Images ] have abandoned national ID cards. Another is the high cost.
According to reports, UID's per person cost is estimated to have jumped from Rs 31 to between Rs 450 and Rs 500. Aadhaar will therefore probably cost something like Rs 150,000 crore (Rs 1.5 trillion).
The Planning Commission is already allotting it Rs 35,000 crore to Rs 45,000 crore (Rs 350 billion to Rs 450 billion) over the next five years to cover only half the population. This is astronomical for a scheme with dubious benefits.
Yet, the Aadhaar project is being pushed through without a legal basis, and without public or parliamentary debate.
UIDAI was created by an administrative order -- and before any proof of concept studies were commissioned. Aadhaar numbers are being rolled out even before the relevant bill is tabled in Parliament.
The process is profoundly undemocratic and the project thoroughly misconceived. It must be halted at once.
___________________________________________
UID: High Possibility of Misuse
Published on: October 6, 2010 - 22:46
More in: Opinion
BY PRAFUL BIDWAI
IN elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity (UID) num bers by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh and the Congress chairperson, Ms Sonia Gandhi in a tribal district of Maharashtra. The 12-digit number for each citizen is supposed to achieve pilferage-free delivery of services to the underprivileged.
Aadhaar (support/sustenance/foundation) promises to rid the Public Distribution System of grain diversion and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) of pilferage (estimated at 15-20 per cent of funds), by collecting each Indian resident’s name, address, parents’ names, etc and biometric data (photographs, all 10 fingerprints, iris scans). This data will be used to generate a UID for buying below-poverty-line (BPL) rations, NREGA enrolment, opening bank accounts, etc. It’s claimed that the UID will ensure non-duplication of identity and hence eliminate leakage. This claim is wrong and deceptive.
Violation of Trust
Aadhaar’s real purpose is ‘national security’, including surveillance, profiling and tracking of citizens. The UID will be fed into a database to be shared with NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid), which includes 11 security and intelligence agencies (like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and CBI). Such ‘convergence’ will provide real-time access into 21 databases–including bank and credit-card accounts, driving licences, and travel records.
However, Aadhaar is being dishonestly marketed as a social security-related scheme. Former Intelligence Bureau director, Mr AK Doval admits that Aadhaar was ‘intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people’ but is being projected as development-oriented, ‘lest it ruffle any feathers’. Such deception violates transparency and public trust.
Yet, National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) chair, Mr Nandan Nilekani claims that Aadhaar is about ‘inclusivity … and giving people, who have been denied identity, a chance’.
Apologists claim Aadhaar will uniquely protect India’s 250 million migrant workers against summary eviction. This is farcical, given the Indian state’s record in displacing 45 million people since Independence and in bundling 1 lakh families out of Delhi for the Commonwealth Games. It’s hard to believe that an otherwise callous state suddenly wants to deliver services efficiently to the poor through Aadhaar.
False Claims
NIAI starts with the premise that ‘in many areas [NREGA] wages continue to be paid in … cash’ and there’s massive duplication of job-cards. Actually, NREGA wages have been paid into bank accounts since 2008; 83 per cent of job-cardholders have accounts. Economist-activist, Ms Reetika Khera says, "three ways of siphoning off money remain–extortion, collusion and fraud". "Extortion means that when ‘inflated’ wages are withdrawn by labourers … [but] … the middleman … takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages …. Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers …."
UID can at best help prevent ‘fraud’, not collusion or extortion, which are more common. Most fraud is materials-related. Village headmen collude with officials to create fictitious records of building-material supplies. Only transparent accounting and people’s supervision/verification can tackle this, not Aadhaar.
Similarly, NIAI attributes PDS leakages to duplicate ration-cards. But, after computerisation of records and hologrammed cards, duplication has dropped to under 10 per cent in most states.
Ms Khera says: "There are two major sources of [PDS] leakage …: one, diversion of grain, en route to the village ration shop. … Two, dealers undersell (e.g., only 25 kg out of the 35 kg Below-Poverty-Line entitlement) and yet make people testify … that they got their full quota." Aadhaar can tackle neither leakage. People will remain in the corrupt shopkeeper’s grip unless there is a new supply-chain management system that lets them go to another dealer. But there isn’t.
That demolishes the claims of portability of benefits and inclusivity. The NIAI documents say "the NREGS programme can be used to enrol residents into the UID programme …." But this cannot produce inclusion. It only means that Aadhaar needs the PDS and NREGA to enrol people. The PDS-NREGA don’t need Aadhaar. In fact, by making Aadhaar a precondition for delivering services, the government will exclude people without UIDs. NIAI officials claim Aadhaar will accurately target the poor and enable access to services. But NIAI documents also say ‘the UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements’– a huge contradiction.
The Aadhaar project has grave civil liberties implications. With it, the government can profile citizens and track their movements and transactions. The designated registrars, including state governments, Life Insurance Corporation, banks and multinationals like Ernst and Young, can misuse this data.
It’s likely that intimate personal details–pre-existing illnesses or romantic relationships–will be shared with other agencies. Under the draft NIAI Bill, the Authority will maintain details of every identity authentication request and disclose identity information for ‘national security’. This permits tracking of citizens.
Whenever the government gets excessive authority, it misuses it, as is the experience with our anti-terrorism Acts and the Armed Forces Special Powers and Public Safety Acts.
A Vulnerable People
It’s unwise to rely on technology to tackle social problems like corruption. People with low-quality fingerprints (e.g. construction workers) or cataract/corneal problems can generate misleading fingerprints and iris scans. Such errors can exclude between 10 and 60 million from UID. Biometric readings can go wrong if power supply fails–as happens virtually daily in most of our societies.
Many supposedly secure databases/websites, including those of the Indian and US defence ministries have been hacked. Data theft and transfer to intelligence agencies or corporations have potentially horrendous consequences.
Many countries including the UK, US and Australia have abandoned national ID-cards because such schemes are technically unproven and ‘unsafe’. They also have high costs. Aadhaar will probably cost an astronomical ` 150,000 crore.
The Aadhaar project is being pushed through without public or Parliamentary debate. NIAI was created by an administrative order–before any feasibility or efficiency studies were commissioned. Aadhaar numbers are being rolled out even before the relevant Bill is tabled in Parliament. The process is profoundly undemocratic and the project thoroughly misconceived. It must be halted at once.
_________________________________________
Monday 4th October 2010
Why Indians should fear the UID
October 12, 2010 10:11 IST
By Praful Bidwai
The Aadhaar or UID project has grave implications for every Indian.
It will enable the government to profile every citizen and track their movements and transactions.
There is no guarantee that intimate personal information -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships etc -- won't be shared with other agencies, warns Praful Bidwai.
An elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity numbers in a tribal district of Maharashtra [ Images ] by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] and Congress President Sonia Gandhi [ Images ].
At its core is the pretence that giving a unique 12-digit number to each underprivileged citizen will achieve what hundreds of welfare schemes, and numerous efforts to control corruption, have failed to accomplish: Namely, pilferage-free delivery of services to the poor.
Aadhaar, meaning support, foundation or sustenance, is being projected as a magic wand -- just what the poor need from a benevolent State. The paternalism cannot be missed.
Aadhaar's legitimacy is pinned on benefiting the underprivileged. But as with all magic wands, this could prove illusory.
Aadhaar is supposed to ensure that grain will not be diverted from the public distribution system, and that corruption will be eliminated from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in which 15 to 20 percent of funds are pilfered.
This is to be achieved by collecting basic information (name, address, parents' names, date of birth, etc) and biometric data (photographs, all 10 fingerprints, iris scans) for each resident.
This will be used to generate a UID to conduct all manner of transactions: From buying rations on below-poverty-line cards, to NREGA enrolment, to opening a bank account. It's claimed that the UID will ensure non-duplication and hence eliminate leakage. As we see below, this claim is excessive, if not specious.
Aadhaar's origin and real purpose are rooted in 'national security', including surveillance, profiling and tracking of citizens.
The UIDs will be fed into a database to be shared with Natgrid (National Intelligence Grid), which includes 11 security and intelligence agencies (Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, CBI, Central Boards of Excise and Direct Taxes, etc).
Natgrid, to be created by next May, will provide real-time access into 21 databases -- including bank account details, credit card transactions, driving licences, and travel records.
An intelligence official has been quoted as saying, "Once you feed in a person's name, you will get all the details about him, across all the databases."
These include the colour of his/her car, the traffic fines to be paid, and the last time he/she paid by card for a late-night dinner.
However, Aadhaar is being dishonestly marketed as a social security-related scheme. Eminent economist and food rights activist Jean Dreze deplores this.
From the right of the spectrum, former Intelligence Bureau director A K Doval welcomes the deception, and admits that Aadhaar was 'intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people... Now, it is being projected as more development-oriented, lest it ruffle any feathers.'
This deception violates transparency and public trust. Yet, the chair of the Unique Identification Authority of India [ Images ] (UIDAI), Nandan Nilekani, claims Aadhaar is about 'inclusivity... a better quality of public service delivery, it's about giving people, who have been denied identity, a chance.'
The claim is carried to farcical extremes by Aadhaar's apologists, who say it is the only protection for India's 250 million migrant workers against summary eviction.
This is rich, given the Indian State's record in displacing 45 million people since Independence and in bundling 100,000 poor families out of Delhi [ Images ] and forcibly 'repatriating' migrant workers for the Commonwealth Games [ Images ].
But we are asked to believe that the State has suddenly turned benign and wants to deliver services efficiently to the poor through Aadhaar.
The NIAI starts with the premise that 'in many areas (NREGA) wages continue to be paid in cash' and there is massive duplication of job cards. This is factually wrong.
Since 2008, NREGA wages have been paid into bank accounts, reducing corruption. Today, 83 percent of job-cardholders have accounts.
Yet, as economist-activist Reetika Khera points out, 'Three ways of siphoning off money remain -- extortion, collusion and fraud. Extortion means that when 'inflated' wages are withdrawn by labourers from their account, the middleman turns extortionist and takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages... Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers...'
UID can at best help prevent 'fraud', not collusion or extortion, which are far more common. A great deal of corruption is not wage-related, but materials-related. Sarpanchs collude with officials to create fictitious records of building-material supplies.
Aadhaar cannot tackle this. Only transparent accounting and supervision and verification can.
Similarly, the UIDAI attributes PDS leakages to duplicate ration cards. But duplication has dropped significantly after computerisation of records and hologrammed cards. It is as low as two percent in Tamil Nadu and eight percent in Chhattisgarh.
Khera says, 'There are two major sources of leakage within the PDS -- one, diversion of grain, en route to the village ration shop. Dealers then appear helpless saying that they have been issued less... Two, dealers undersell (for example, only 25 kg out of the 35 kg entitlement) and yet make people testify on official records that they got their full quota.'
Neither leakage can be tackled by Aadhaar. Unless people have the choice to go to another dealer, they will remain in the grip of the corrupt shopkeeper. But this needs a new supply-chain management system.
That demolishes the claim of portability of benefits. The claim of inclusivity is similarly vacuous. The authority's document says that 'the NREGS programme can be used to enrol residents into the UID programme.' But this cannot produce inclusion.
It only admits that Aadhaar needs the existing PDS and NREGA databases to enrol people. The PDS-NREGA do not need Aadhaar.
If the government wants to reach those excluded from social programmes like homeless temporary migrants, it can open community kitchens.
In fact, by making Aadhaar a condition for delivering services, the government will exclude those who don't have UIDs. This is perverse. It ialso contradictory.
On the one hand, UIDAI officials claim Aadhaar will accurately target the poor and break the barriers that prevent them from accessing services.
On the other, UIDAI openly says it's 'in the identity business. The responsibility of tracking beneficiaries and... service delivery will continue to remain with the respective agencies. The UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements.'
The Aadhaar project has grave civil liberty implications. It will enable the government to profile citizens and track their movements and transactions.
There is no guarantee that intimately personal details -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships, anonymous donations -- won't be shared with other agencies.
The designated registrars include private operators as well as state governments, the Life Insurance Corporation and banks.
Also involved are multinational firms like Ernst and Young and Accenture. Already, Apollo Hospital has applied for managing the health records in the Aadhaar database.
That is not all. The draft NIAI Bill says the authority will maintain details of every request for identity authentication and that identity information may be disclosed in the interests of 'national security'. These clauses permit the tracking of citizens.
Experience shows that whenever the government gets excessive authority, it is misused. That is what happened with our anti-terrorism acts and is happening with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act in numerous states.
Excessive reliance on technology, especially to tackle special problems like corruption, can be disastrous. Technologies can fail.
Biometric readings can go wrong if power supply fails -- as happens virtually daily in most of India. Biometric readings may produce misleading results, as the authority admits, 'in Indian environmental conditions (extremely hot and humid climate and facilities without air-conditioning).'
People with low-quality fingerprints (construction workers) and with cataract/corneal problems can pose problems for fingerprints and iris scans.
Between 10 and 60 million people could be excluded from UID due to such errors.
Aadhaar poses serious data security problems. ID card schemes, says a London [ Images ] School of Economics study, are 'too complex', technically unproven and 'unsafe'.
All kinds of supposedly secure databases/Web sites, including those of India's defence ministry and the Pentagon [ Images ], have been hacked. Data theft and transfer to intelligence agencies or corporations have potentially horrendous consequences.
That is one reason why many countries including the UK, US and Australia [ Images ] have abandoned national ID cards. Another is the high cost.
According to reports, UID's per person cost is estimated to have jumped from Rs 31 to between Rs 450 and Rs 500. Aadhaar will therefore probably cost something like Rs 150,000 crore (Rs 1.5 trillion).
The Planning Commission is already allotting it Rs 35,000 crore to Rs 45,000 crore (Rs 350 billion to Rs 450 billion) over the next five years to cover only half the population. This is astronomical for a scheme with dubious benefits.
Yet, the Aadhaar project is being pushed through without a legal basis, and without public or parliamentary debate.
UIDAI was created by an administrative order -- and before any proof of concept studies were commissioned. Aadhaar numbers are being rolled out even before the relevant bill is tabled in Parliament.
The process is profoundly undemocratic and the project thoroughly misconceived. It must be halted at once.
___________________________________________
UID: High Possibility of Misuse
Published on: October 6, 2010 - 22:46
More in: Opinion
BY PRAFUL BIDWAI
IN elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity (UID) num bers by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh and the Congress chairperson, Ms Sonia Gandhi in a tribal district of Maharashtra. The 12-digit number for each citizen is supposed to achieve pilferage-free delivery of services to the underprivileged.
Aadhaar (support/sustenance/foundation) promises to rid the Public Distribution System of grain diversion and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) of pilferage (estimated at 15-20 per cent of funds), by collecting each Indian resident’s name, address, parents’ names, etc and biometric data (photographs, all 10 fingerprints, iris scans). This data will be used to generate a UID for buying below-poverty-line (BPL) rations, NREGA enrolment, opening bank accounts, etc. It’s claimed that the UID will ensure non-duplication of identity and hence eliminate leakage. This claim is wrong and deceptive.
Violation of Trust
Aadhaar’s real purpose is ‘national security’, including surveillance, profiling and tracking of citizens. The UID will be fed into a database to be shared with NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid), which includes 11 security and intelligence agencies (like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and CBI). Such ‘convergence’ will provide real-time access into 21 databases–including bank and credit-card accounts, driving licences, and travel records.
However, Aadhaar is being dishonestly marketed as a social security-related scheme. Former Intelligence Bureau director, Mr AK Doval admits that Aadhaar was ‘intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people’ but is being projected as development-oriented, ‘lest it ruffle any feathers’. Such deception violates transparency and public trust.
Yet, National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) chair, Mr Nandan Nilekani claims that Aadhaar is about ‘inclusivity … and giving people, who have been denied identity, a chance’.
Apologists claim Aadhaar will uniquely protect India’s 250 million migrant workers against summary eviction. This is farcical, given the Indian state’s record in displacing 45 million people since Independence and in bundling 1 lakh families out of Delhi for the Commonwealth Games. It’s hard to believe that an otherwise callous state suddenly wants to deliver services efficiently to the poor through Aadhaar.
False Claims
NIAI starts with the premise that ‘in many areas [NREGA] wages continue to be paid in … cash’ and there’s massive duplication of job-cards. Actually, NREGA wages have been paid into bank accounts since 2008; 83 per cent of job-cardholders have accounts. Economist-activist, Ms Reetika Khera says, "three ways of siphoning off money remain–extortion, collusion and fraud". "Extortion means that when ‘inflated’ wages are withdrawn by labourers … [but] … the middleman … takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages …. Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers …."
UID can at best help prevent ‘fraud’, not collusion or extortion, which are more common. Most fraud is materials-related. Village headmen collude with officials to create fictitious records of building-material supplies. Only transparent accounting and people’s supervision/verification can tackle this, not Aadhaar.
Similarly, NIAI attributes PDS leakages to duplicate ration-cards. But, after computerisation of records and hologrammed cards, duplication has dropped to under 10 per cent in most states.
Ms Khera says: "There are two major sources of [PDS] leakage …: one, diversion of grain, en route to the village ration shop. … Two, dealers undersell (e.g., only 25 kg out of the 35 kg Below-Poverty-Line entitlement) and yet make people testify … that they got their full quota." Aadhaar can tackle neither leakage. People will remain in the corrupt shopkeeper’s grip unless there is a new supply-chain management system that lets them go to another dealer. But there isn’t.
That demolishes the claims of portability of benefits and inclusivity. The NIAI documents say "the NREGS programme can be used to enrol residents into the UID programme …." But this cannot produce inclusion. It only means that Aadhaar needs the PDS and NREGA to enrol people. The PDS-NREGA don’t need Aadhaar. In fact, by making Aadhaar a precondition for delivering services, the government will exclude people without UIDs. NIAI officials claim Aadhaar will accurately target the poor and enable access to services. But NIAI documents also say ‘the UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements’– a huge contradiction.
The Aadhaar project has grave civil liberties implications. With it, the government can profile citizens and track their movements and transactions. The designated registrars, including state governments, Life Insurance Corporation, banks and multinationals like Ernst and Young, can misuse this data.
It’s likely that intimate personal details–pre-existing illnesses or romantic relationships–will be shared with other agencies. Under the draft NIAI Bill, the Authority will maintain details of every identity authentication request and disclose identity information for ‘national security’. This permits tracking of citizens.
Whenever the government gets excessive authority, it misuses it, as is the experience with our anti-terrorism Acts and the Armed Forces Special Powers and Public Safety Acts.
A Vulnerable People
It’s unwise to rely on technology to tackle social problems like corruption. People with low-quality fingerprints (e.g. construction workers) or cataract/corneal problems can generate misleading fingerprints and iris scans. Such errors can exclude between 10 and 60 million from UID. Biometric readings can go wrong if power supply fails–as happens virtually daily in most of our societies.
Many supposedly secure databases/websites, including those of the Indian and US defence ministries have been hacked. Data theft and transfer to intelligence agencies or corporations have potentially horrendous consequences.
Many countries including the UK, US and Australia have abandoned national ID-cards because such schemes are technically unproven and ‘unsafe’. They also have high costs. Aadhaar will probably cost an astronomical ` 150,000 crore.
The Aadhaar project is being pushed through without public or Parliamentary debate. NIAI was created by an administrative order–before any feasibility or efficiency studies were commissioned. Aadhaar numbers are being rolled out even before the relevant Bill is tabled in Parliament. The process is profoundly undemocratic and the project thoroughly misconceived. It must be halted at once.
_________________________________________
Monday 4th October 2010
in Daily Star 'Your Right to know'
By Praful Bidwai
Aadhaar (support/sustenance/ foundation) promises to rid the public distribution system of grain diversion and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) of pilferage (estimated at 15-20% of funds), by collecting each Indian resident's name, address, parents' names, etc., and biometric data (photographs, all 10 fingerprints, iris scans).
This data will be used to generate a UID for buying below-poverty-line (BPL) rations, NREGA enrolment, opening bank accounts, etc. It's claimed that the UID will ensure non-duplication of identity and hence eliminate leakage. This claim is wrong and deceptive.
Aadhaar's real purpose is "national security," including surveillance, profiling and tracking of citizens. The UID will be fed into a database to be shared with NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid), which includes 11 security and intelligence agencies (like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and CBI).
Such "convergence" will provide real-time access into 21 databases -- including bank and credit-card accounts, driving licences, and travel records.
However, Aadhaar is being dishonestly marketed as a social security-related scheme. Former Intelligence Bureau director A.K. Doval admits that Aadhaar was "intended to wash out the aliens and unauthorised people" but is being projected as development-oriented, "lest it ruffle any feathers." Such deception violates transparency and public trust.
Yet, National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) chair Nandan Nilekani claims that Aadhaar is about "inclusivity … and giving people, who have been denied identity, a chance."
Apologists claim Aadhaar will uniquely protect India's 250 million migrant workers against summary eviction. This is farcical, given the Indian state's record in displacing 45 million people since Independence and in bundling 1 lakh families out of Delhi for the Commonwealth Games.
It's hard to believe that an otherwise callous state suddenly wants to deliver services efficiently to the poor through Aadhaar.
NIAI starts with the premise that "in many areas [NREGA] wages continue to be paid in … cash" and there's massive duplication of job-cards.
Actually, NREGA wages have been paid into bank accounts since 2008; 83% of job-cardholders have accounts. Economist-activist Reetika Khera says: "Three ways of siphoning off money remain -- extortion, collusion and fraud. Extortion means that when 'inflated' wages are withdrawn by labourers … [but] … the middleman … takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages …. Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers …."
UID can at best help prevent "fraud," not collusion or extortion, which are more common. Most fraud is materials-related. Village headmen collude with officials to create fictitious records of building-material supplies. Only transparent accounting and people's supervision/verification can tackle this, not Aadhaar.
Similarly, NIAI attributes PDS leakages to duplicate ration-cards. But, after computerisation of records and hologrammed cards, duplication has dropped -- to under 10% in most states.
Khera says: "There are two major sources of [PDS] leakage …: One, diversion of grain, en route to the village ration shop. … Two, dealers undersell (e.g., only 25 kg out of the 35 kg Below-Poverty-Line entitlement) and yet make people testify … that they got their full quota."
Aadhaar can tackle neither leakage. People will remain in the corrupt shopkeeper's grip unless there is a new supply-chain management system that lets them go to another dealer. But there isn't.
That demolishes the claims of portability of benefits and inclusivity. The NIAI documents say "the NREGS programme can be used to enrol residents into the UID programme …." But this cannot produce inclusion. It only means that Aadhaar needs the PDS and NREGA to enrol people. The PDS-NREGA don't need Aadhaar.
In fact, by making Aadhaar a precondition for delivering services, the government will exclude people without UIDs.
NIAI officials claim Aadhaar will accurately target the poor and enable access to services. But NIAI documents also say "the UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements" -- a huge contradiction.
The Aadhaar project has grave civil liberties implications. With it, the government can profile citizens and track their movements and transactions. The designated registrars, including state governments, Life Insurance Corporation, banks and multinationals like Ernst and Young, can misuse this data.
It's likely that intimate personal details -- pre-existing illnesses or romantic relationships -- will be shared with other agencies.
Under the draft NIAI Bill, the Authority will maintain details of every identity authentication request and disclose identity information for "national security." This permits tracking of citizens.
Whenever the government gets excessive authority, it misuses it, as is the experience with our anti-terrorism acts and the Armed Forces Special Powers and Public Safety Acts.
It's unwise to rely on technology to tackle social problems like corruption. People with low-quality fingerprints (e.g. construction workers) or cataract/corneal problems can generate misleading fingerprints and iris scans. Such errors can exclude between 10 and 60 million from UID.
Biometric readings can go wrong if power supply fails -- as happens virtually daily in most of our societies.
Many supposedly secure databases/websites, including those of the Indian and US defence ministries, have been hacked. Data theft and transfer to intelligence agencies or corporations have potentially horrendous consequences.
Many countries, including the UK, US and Australia, have abandoned national ID-cards because such schemes are technically unproven and "unsafe." They also have high costs. Aadhaar will probably cost an astronomical Rs.150,000 crores.
The Aadhaar project is being pushed through without public or Parliamentary debate. NIAI was created by an administrative order -- before any feasibility or efficiency studies were commissioned. Aadhaar numbers are being rolled out even before the relevant Bill is tabled in Parliament.
The process is profoundly undemocratic and the project thoroughly misconceived. It must be halted at once.
Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist
Email: bidwai@bol.net.in.
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5th June 2010
Questionable link by PRAFUL BIDWAI
Aadhaar Article No 177
The UIDAI's plan to use population information compiled from Census 2011 data to generate the UID is fraught with dangers to individual freedoms and rights.
The pilot project of the UIDAI involved collection of biometric data of individuals, including (above) iris information and (below) fingerprints and photographs in various places.
When the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was launched last year, there was no debate on its purpose or clarity about what methods it would use to give each one of 1.2 billion Indians a 16-digit unique identity (UID) number.
Although its Chairman, Information Technology (IT) star Nandan Nilekani, was given Cabinet rank, the UIDAI was not placed under a Ministry but within the Planning Commission, a non-statutory body, which has increasingly appropriated power without public accountability. There was no discussion on the merits of the project vis-a-vis other means of identification for purposes such as employment guarantee schemes, below-poverty-line (BPL) cards, or education entitlements.
The project has since ballooned into a gargantuan scheme. The latest Budget raised its annual allocation 16-fold. It has a new name (Aadhaar) and a logo. Meanwhile, Nilekani has decided that biometric data, including scans of both irises and all 10 fingerprints, will be used for each individual's UID. Even children between five and 15 years will be included “in view of the Right to Education”.
The project is now riding piggyback on the Census-2011 enumeration, which has begun. The Census data will be used to prepare a National Population Register, which will compile detailed information on each individual under 15 heads, including name, sex, date of birth, parents' details, present and permanent address, marital status and “if ever married, name of spouse”. It will include biometric data. According to Nilekani, the UIDAI will act as “the back-office of the NPR” by “de-duplicating” the collected data to generate the UID. As we see below, the UID-NPR-Census link is illegitimate.
There is no clarity about the project's purpose and the legitimacy of one of its principal functions: profiling citizens from whom the state is potentially at risk, to fight terrorism.
All manner of claims are made about its virtues and its potential to contribute to governance: it will create a reliable register of citizens; demarcate genuine nationals from illegal migrants; help the state keep an eye on terrorists, tax dodgers and money-launderers; bring 60 per cent of the poor who do not have bank accounts into the banking system; and promote microcredit delivery through fingerprint-compatible mobile phones. Above all, the project is supposed to enable accurate targeting of health care, food, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act benefits to the poor, while eliminating leaks and reducing corruption.
Confusion reigns on whether the UID will be mandatory or voluntary. Nilekani insists it will be optional and concedes that legitimate claimants will be excluded from benefits if it is made mandatory. Yet, logically, its coverage must be comprehensive in order to be efficacious.
Many government functionaries see the UID as a technological fix to social and administrative problems, including leaks in service delivery. Nilekani is more ambivalent. He recently said: “It's early days to say how leakages can be plugged. We are working on it.” The first set of UIDs will be issued between August 2010 and February 2011. By 2014, they will cover half the population, with 95 per cent accuracy.
Security rationale
The UID project looks like a solution in search of problems. It is sought to be justified through social and pro-poor functions that are well beyond its core-purpose and can perhaps be achieved by equally efficient means.
Its core rationale and primary purpose is much less lofty than its extravagantly claimed social benefits. It lies in security, surveillance and control – traceable to the idea of a mandatory Multipurpose National Identity Card for all Indians recommended by the Kargil Review Committee chaired by security hawk K. Subrahmanyam.
This committee greatly exceeded its brief and strayed into areas such as security and nuclear weapons doctrines. It seized the Kargil issue to drive a much larger “National Security State” agenda. Home Minister P. Chidambaram himself underscored the UID's security rationale by announcing the UIDAI's establishment in January 2009 as a timely response to the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
This rationale further unfolded with the government announcing a plan to set up a DNA databank and a NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid) connecting 11 agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the Central Board of Excise and Customs and the Central Board of Direct Taxes.
Pivotal intermediary
The information generated by the NPR will be shared with the UIDAI and NATGRID. The DNA bank and NATGRID are meant to combat terrorism and other challenges to internal security. The UIDAI will be a pivotal intermediary between numerous agencies: the Registrar General (which conducts the Census), the Reserve Bank of India (which regulates commercial banks), and telephone and Internet providers, besides intelligence agencies. This is essential if the UID number is to be accepted as a proof of identity. But how reliable is the UID as the prime, if not sole, information base for security agencies, indeed even the civilian administration? The answer is, not very. Its data would not be subject to verification. Since nationality is to be recorded “as declared” and so transmitted in downstream documentation, any number of non-citizens could instantly register themselves as Indian nationals. They could as easily open bank accounts, obtain Indian travel documents, and get jobs as genuine Indians. This obviously has negative security consequences. These should not be exaggerated. But the fact is that the UID is full of verification and authentification voids.
Even worse, the technology involved in it is highly problematic. A London School of Economics (LSE) team analysed a similar project considered by the British government. It concluded: “The technology envisioned… is to a large extent untested and unreliable. No scheme on this scale has been undertaken anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious systems have encountered substantial technological and operational problems that are likely to be amplified in a large-scale national system.” The problems will get immensely magnified in India, which is almost 20 times more populous than Britain and has a rickety administrative system.
The issue of the reliability of IT-based methods is ignored in India, thanks to blind faith in IT. This society is bewitched by technology but has a poor appreciation of science or the scepticism it counsels. Thus, we refuse even to countenance problems of data security and vulnerability to manipulation of electronic voting machines (EVMs), although these are widely recognised in technologically more literate societies – and although IT professionals based at the University of Michigan have successfully hacked into Indian EVMs ( The Times of India, May 21).
The UIDAI's database will be preyed upon by numerous agencies, Indian and foreign, commercial and governmental, security-related or involved in industrial espionage. Recently, researchers from the University of Toronto exposed a China-based computer espionage network that pilfered classified documents from India's Defence Ministry. The “compromised” installations included the Directorate-General of Military Intelligence; three Air Force bases; Indian Military Engineer Services in four places; a Mountain Artillery Brigade in Assam; two Indian military colleges; and Indian Embassy computers in Kabul, Moscow, Dubai, and Nigeria (see http://nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science/06cyber.html). Similarly, DNA databases can be corrupted, potentially victimising innocent citizens.
Nothing suggests that the UIDAI-related databases will be more secure than military networks. There is, besides all these weighty considerations, the question of costs of creating and maintaining an enormous database of 1.2 billion citizens. The LSE study estimated that the cost in Britain would be £10-20 billion. The proportionate cost in India would exceed Rs.2 lakh crore, enormous for a poor country, where 70 per cent of the population has no toilets. This means forgoing increased provision of public services.
In an interview to CNN-IBN, Nandan Nilekani does not deny that “this is a project where we are going into uncharted territories, the technological challenges are immense and one of the risks of the project is technology” (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/nic/nandannilekani.htm). He also concedes that “I don't know what the exact figure… is”, but still contends that “it is much less than [Rs.1.5 lakh crore]… by a factor of 10”.
Violation of privacy
However, all these grave problems pale beside the UID's potential for invading citizens' privacy and violating constitutional freedoms. NATGRID will provide security agencies real time access into 21 categories of databases – including bank account details, credit card transactions, driving licences, and visa and immigration records. An intelligence official has been quoted as saying: “Once you feed in a person's name, you'll get all the details about him, across all databases.” These include overdue traffic fines and credit card records. “There really will not be any secrets from the state.”
The data collected would greatly exceed the need-based information that people furnish to different agencies to operate a bank account, obtain a passport or get a ration card. Now all this information will be pooled and made to converge in a single database available to hundreds of government departments at the click of a mouse.
Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI chief: "The technological challenges are huge."
This convergence means that the citizen will lose control over his/her personal information. Official agencies can use this information to track citizens' movements, bank transactions and other legitimate activities. This constitutes an impermissible intrusion by Big Brother into privacy, a fundamental right.
The NPR and NATGRID can track and profile individuals by studying transactions and patterns. The NPR is being compiled not under the Census Act but under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Census Act guarantees confidentiality and says personal data is “not open to inspection nor admissible in evidence”. Such protection is missing from the latter, which makes citizen registration “compulsory”. The Census Act aims at capturing the profile of the population, not individuals. Profiling of individuals is liable to violate their freedom, privacy and confidentiality.
However, strangely, the UIDAI disowns all responsibility for how its database will be used. It openly declares it is in “the identity business”. It states: “The responsibility of tracking beneficiaries and the governance of service delivery will continue to remain with the respective agencies.” Also, “the UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements”. This falsifies the key rationalisation offered for the scheme: namely, that the UID will break the barriers that prevent the poor from accessing public services/subsidies.
The Indian state's record of abusing technology and personal information is deplorable. Take the recent tapping of politicians' conversations by agencies using new “passive interception technology”, which enables them to eavesdrop on all mobile communication within a 2-km radius. This led to an uproar in Parliament. But the government is planning to legalise the use of such equipment while short-circuiting the procedure for wiretapping under the Telegraph Act, which requires the approval of the Home Secretary and review by a high-level committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary.
The state has always tried to acquire extraordinary powers over citizens and then abuse them. One only has to recall the record of implementation of our preventive detention laws, TADA, POTA and the more than 200 other extraordinary laws such as the Public Security Acts of many States to be gravely concerned at the abuse potential. What India needs is not the UIDAI, but effective legislation to defend privacy and punish intrusion into it.
The intelligence agencies are not answerable to the public and are outside the purview of the Right to Information Act. We can never know what they know about citizens and how they interpret and use this information. The UID scheme and associated database-sharing will enable state agencies to know every minute detail of a citizen's life, but the citizen is barred from knowing what they know about him/her and what they do with that knowledge. This is a mockery of democracy.
This society is already paying heavily for the state's practice of the politics of suspicion, whose most extreme expression is “encounter killing”. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recently admitted that as many as 2,560 police “encounters” were reported to it between 1993 and 2006 – an annual average of 183. It found almost half – 1,224, to be precise – to be “fake” or staged, that is, non-judicial executions.
The state behaves particularly roguishly when acting in the name of defending national security. Experience tells us that the key to fighting terrorism is to treat it as a crime and bring its perpetrators to book while addressing its root causes. What is needed is not more intrusive surveillance, nor more sophisticated electronic databases, but good, honest policing, patient collection of evidence and competent prosecution.
To put yet more draconian and unaccountable powers in the hands of the state is to write the charter of citizens' slavery. The UID project does exactly that. It must be uncompromisingly opposed. Or else, we will slide down the slippery slope of strangling people's freedoms and rights and using increasingly intrusive means to “discipline” citizens. Nothing can harm democracy more grievously.
