[Reader-list] Personal Identity Data and Mass Murder in India

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Nishant

Thank you so much for sharing your views.

Is paranoia an undesirable way to conduct public discourse? If most of
us appear to be completely at ease with the megalomania of a state and
its grandiose policy like UID then why can't some of us be a little
shrill while agitating and sharing our doubts with other people.

I do not know for myself whether there is any validity with respect to
the use of personal identity data and mass murders. I haven't come
across an annotated history riots in India which proves this link but
like you, I too was thinking aloud and speculating that if given that,
there seems to exist instances where people have resorted to the use
such data to commit genocide then could it be so that data garnered
for UID be used to provide backend research for any future Gujarat
like situation. I was just wondering!

Why do you think my understanding of UID is relevant at this moment
when there seems to be some fundamental slippage in the way in which
the idea of personal identity is formulated by this institution.
Furthermore as things stand now UID seems to be grooming experts in
'estimating' factors which shape personal identity. Given these
inconsistencies I hesitate to think about the nature of its
application like it being a  Social Security Number etc. I would
rather we move one step at a time. So the notion of identity needs to
be understood first and settled before moving on to other areas like
how is it going to shape questions with respect to privacy, or how is
it going to define citizen/ state relationship or what common grounds
can be explored for institutional negotiation and so on.

So for me the question of what UID is doing is perhaps too far way,
please forgive me, for I am still struck at what -I- is? I think I am
going to take a while to understand it and perhaps then I may like to
join you in thinking about what UID is doing.

Business of identity? Is UID working in that generic a sector, would
tattooing industry come under business of identity too? Can we club
these two approaches to marking identities or should we go in for a
little more specific economic clustering for UID? UID seems to be gap
filling agency. This denial of services argument was given by Bipin
too. I am familiar with it. One of my concerns with this argument is
obviously related to opportunity cost. Shouldn't we look more closely
at how much money is going to be apportioned for this exercise. I mean
don't you feel a sense of concern that why perhaps after being one of
the better organized programs of UPA we really do not know how much
money is going to be transferred for this exercise. There is a
fundamental question of justice which needs to be picked up people. Is
this transfer of money just? Is it morally alright for the government
of India to transfer, what some people believe, to be 1,50,000 crore
rupees? Do we as a nation have this amount of disposable income?

Regarding Gujarat, it is alleged that residency data, people data and
data related to name, age, gender etc came from different sources, do
you think if such discreet data belonging to five maybe six different
government departments could be extracted then demographic data
clustered in data centers which are often going to be operated by
private vendors can be difficult to break into. I know this is just
speculation as of now. One also feels that for all one knows such an
eventuality might never come to pass but one wonders, can it happen?

> Hence, the arguments that you are making are not really against the UID but
> against a certain legal and jurisdical context where there are no laws
> protecting the private information of the individual and no safeguards to
> ensure that Citizen Data (which is essential to modern governance) would not
> be compromised either by the State or other interested parties.

I apologize but I do not understand the above formulation. You seem to
separate UID from a legal and jurisdical context, please tell me how
can the function of a department of a state be separated from a legal
context. Can you please give me an example?

My concern is with fundamental nature of UID. My concern is with the
public money which is going to go with UID. My concern is with stupid
childish thoughts like why is it that we cannot sanction an equal
amount of money for building a network of sewers in India or say
apportion half of the money which might go the UID way to subsidize
right to shit with dignity? These might seem rhetorical concerns or it
might seem like totally uncalled for imaginations but I think there's
a certain blindness of reason which is gripping sections of Indian
population which seem to embrace UID with open arms or atleast
settling to the idea of it being there forever. Tell me how long do
you think UID will take to map indian population?

Thanks!

Taha