[Reader-list] Time to fast-track national ID system- 182

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

Now the story below is interesting, one way to look at this story
would be applaud at what Nandu is doing, fill our chests with empty
air and FEEL that pride of being an Indian, that LOOK even in Jamaica,
they are talking about Nandu,

The other way, the more sober way, would be to, think and ask, why is
it that suddenly we, the citizens of this world are asked to believe
that all of us need an unique national identity number? Why now? Why
so suddenly?

  It seems as if the idea of NIC is mutating and replicating itself
across the world like a virus. Is it true? What is actually happening
here? Who is getting the money? Who all are getting all the contracts?
Is it one company? Is it a consortium? How do these people identify a
territory, segregate a market, develop a strategy and then penetrate?
Seems like a good clean strategy of 'pataoing' a girl,  a la Love Aaj
Kal , one wonders why is the aam janta, the mango people of this world
are being asked to give all their personal/private information to this
'vendor driven' unknown, unfathomable, untraceable network?

Regards

Taha

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090803/cleisure/cleisure1.html

EDITORIAL - Time to fast-track national ID system

Published: Monday | August 3, 2009

India wants to know the people who live in the country; that is to
say, identifying them not merely as statistics, but as unique
individuals.

It makes sense. There is no single, nationally recognised
identification system in India and the myriad process used by states
and various government agencies, which are not always transferable
across the country, are riddled with fraud and open to abuse,
including identity theft.

Delhi mulled over the problem for several years, but was galvanised
into action after last year's terrorist attack in Mumbai, amid
deepening concern about the ease with which people wishing to do harm
might enter the country and infiltrate the country.

So serious is Delhi taking the matter that last month Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh not only named one of the country's leading IT
entrepreneurs, Nandan Nilekani as chairman of the Unique
Identification Authority, but gave him Cabinet rank to push through
the ID programme. Mr Nilekani expects to begin distributing the first
ID cards in the next year to 18 months and to have the country fully
registered over the next several years, with unique biometric
information on all 1.17 billion Indians on a central database.

Iris scan

But India is not the only country moving to implement a centralised,
national identification system based on biometric information. Last
week Mexico's Interior Minister, Fernando Gomez, unveiled plans, to be
fully implemented by 2012, to have in the hand of each Mexican a
national ID card that carries an iris scan and features of recognition
information.

Like Mr Nilekani, Mr Gomez highlighted the economic potential of the
system in reducing fraud in government support programmes and creating
a standard platform for bringing into the formal economy. In India,
for instance, millions of people are without bank accounts or can't
apply for utilities like electricity because of the lack of formal
identification. But Mr Gomez is not lost to the potential of the new
system to help confront the country's security crisis, in which drug
traffickers, who kill thousands, hide behind fake and/or stolen
identities.

The point is that the problems that are egging India and Mexico to
these technologically driven solutions are not unique to those
countries. In Jamaica, our murder rate is over 60 per 100,000, near to
the world's highest. Suspects are identified for less than one-third
of the over 1,600 homicides here each year, and even fewer cases reach
to court.

Multiple aliases

Yet the authorities suspect that many of the people who commit those
crimes do other bad things, while being in contact with the official
system. The problem is that they are not identified, given the
penchant of Jamaicans to have multiple aliases or 'nicknames'.

A national identification system, based on biometric information on a
centralised database, potentially offers a big part of the solution.
The country's experience with the computerised voter identification
system based on fingerprints underlines the possibilities. Voting
fraud has reduced dramatically in the past decade and a half.

The Government, we feel, should accelerate plans, including the
enactment of appropriate legislation for a national ID system. We
expect the complaints by civil-liberty advocates about the potential
for the abuse and invasion of privacy. However, we have to weigh the
benefits against the potential harm. And it can't be beyond us to find
the appropriate balance.