[Reader-list] Jean Dreze on the UID-Database State in India in the Hindu

[Patrice Riemens]

Methink RFID_tagging the whole Indian population is a much better idea!
Preferably with a 'destroy' remote command device attached. Then finally
'gharib hatao' (*) policies can be effectively implemented!

(*) don't underestimate my Hindi...


> Main intention of UID is to keep watch on criminals and terrorist. Once
> the data is maintained it will be very easy task to keep watch on such
> anti national elements. I don't understand why worry about its
> confidentiality. When election data is an open document and nobody objects
> to it than why for UID. UID will be worrisome for those involved in
> antinational activity.
>
> However, it should be made compulsory with fingerprints than only it will
> serve its purpose, else it's of no use.
>
> Thanks
> Bipin Trivedi
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]
> On Behalf Of Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 12:04 PM
> To: reader-list list
> Subject: [Reader-list] Jean Dreze on the UID-Database State in India in
> the Hindu
>
> Dear all,
>
> Please find below a really excellent article by Jean Dreze in The
> Hindu on the UID scheme, which clearly and lucidly argues why the
> building of the database state in India is a very bad idea and a
> recipe for authoritarianism. Hope that this can provoke a debate on the
>
> http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article911055.ece?
> sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4cef25dca9aa0aed%2C0
>
> best.
>
> Shuddha
>
> Unique facility, or recipe for trouble?
>
> Jean Drèze
>
> Opinion/Op Ed, The Hindu, November 25, 2010
> Many questions remain about the Unique Identity Number system that is
> being rolled out by the Central government.
>
> It is quite likely that a few weeks from now someone will be knocking
> at your doors and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your
> fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal
> characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already
> been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census
> household listing” earlier this year.
>
> The purpose of this exercise is to build the National Population
> Register (NPR). In due course, your UID (Unique Identity Number, or
> “Aadhaar”) will be added to it. This will make it possible to link
> the NPR with other Aadhaar-enabled databases, from tax returns to
> bank records and SIM (subscriber identity module) registers. This
> includes the Home Ministry's National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID),
> smoothly linking 21 national databases.
>
> For the intelligence agencies, this will be a dream-come-true.
> Imagine, everyone's fingerprints at the click of a mouse, that too
> with demographic information and all the rest. Should any suspicious
> person book a flight, or use a cybercafé, or any of the services that
> will soon require an Aadhaar number, she will be on their radar. If,
> say, Arundhati Roy makes another trip to Dantewada, she will be
> picked up on arrival like a ripe plum. Fantastic!
>
> ‘A half-truth'
>
> So, when the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) tells
> us that the UID data (the “Central Identities Data Repository”) will
> be safe and confidential, it is a half-truth. The confidentiality of
> the Repository itself is not a minor issue, considering that UIDAI
> can authorise “any entity” to maintain it, and that it can be
> accessed not only by intelligence agencies but also by any Ministry.
> But more important, the UID will help integrate vast amounts of
> personal data, that are available to government agencies with few
> restrictions.
>
> Confidentiality is not the only half-truth propagated by UIDAI.
> Another one is that Aadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a
> voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment
> will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and
> services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the
> number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after
> poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water
> voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not,
> however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”
>
> That UID is, in effect, going to be compulsory is clear from many
> other documents. For instance, the Planning Commission's proposal for
> the National Food Security Act argues for “mandatory use of UID
> numbers which are expected to become operational by the end of
> 2010” (note the optimistic time-frame). No UID, no food. Similarly,
> UIDAI's concept note on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
> (NREGA) assumes that “each citizen needs to provide his UID before
> claiming employment.” Thus, Aadhaar will also be a condition for the
> right to work — so much for its voluntary nature.
>
> Now, if the UID is compulsory, then everyone should have a right to
> free, convenient and reliable enrolment. The enrolment process,
> however, is all set to be a hit-or-miss affair, with no guarantee of
> timely and hassle-free inclusion. UIDAI hopes to enrol 600 million
> people in the next four years. That is about half of India's
> population in the next four years. What about the other half?
>
> Nor is there any guarantee of reliability. Anyone familiar with the
> way things work in rural India would expect the UID database to be
> full of errors. There is a sobering lesson here from the Below
> Poverty Line (BPL) Census. A recent World Bank study found rampant
> anomalies in the BPL list: “A common problem was erroneous
> information entered for household members. In one district of
> Rajasthan, more than 50 per cent of the household members were listed
> as sisters-in-law.”
>
> Will the UID database be more reliable? Don't bet on it. And it is
> not clear how the errors will be corrected as and when they emerge.
>
> Under the proposed National Identification Authority of India Bill
> (“NIDAI Bill”), if someone finds that her “identity information”
> is
> wrong, she is supposed to “request the Authority” to correct it, upon
> which the Authority “may, if it is satisfied, make such alteration as
> may be required.” There is a legal obligation to alert the Authority,
> but no right to correction.
>
> The Aadhaar juggernaut is rolling on regardless (and without any
> legal safeguards in place), fuelled by mesmerising claims about the
> social applications of UID. A prime example is UID's invasion of the
> NREGA. NREGA workers are barely recovering from the chaotic rush to
> payments of wages through banks. Aadhaar is likely to be the next
> ordeal. The local administration is going to be hijacked by enrolment
> drives. NREGA works or payments will come to a standstill where
> workers are waiting for their Aadhaar number. Others will be the
> victims of unreliable technology, inadequate information technology
> facilities, or data errors. And for what? Gradual, people-friendly
> introduction of innovative technologies would serve the NREGA better
> than the UID tamasha.
>
> The real game plan, for social policy, seems to be a massive
> transition to “conditional cash transfers” (CCTs). There is more than
> a hint of this “revolutionary” plan in Nandan Nilekani's book,
> Imagining India. Since then, CCTs have become the rage in policy
> circles. A recent Planning Commission document argues that successful
> CCTs require “a biometric identification system,” now made possible
> by “the initiation of a Unique Identification System (UID) for the
> entire population …” The same document recommends a string of mega
> CCTs, including cash transfers to replace the Public Distribution
> System.
>
> If the backroom boys have their way, India's public services as we
> know them will soon be history, and every citizen will just have a
> Smart Card — food stamps, health insurance, school vouchers,
> conditional maternity entitlements and all that rolled into one. This
> approach may or may not work (that is incidental), but business at
> least will prosper. As the Wall Street Journal says about the
> Rashtriya Swasthya Bhima Yojana (which is a pioneering CCT project,
> for health insurance), “the plan presents a way for insurance
> companies to market themselves and develop brand awareness.”
>
> The danger
>
> The biggest danger of UID, however, lies in a restriction of civil
> liberties. As one observer aptly put it, Aadhaar is creating “the
> infrastructure of authoritarianism” — an unprecedented degree of
> state surveillance (and potential control) of citizens. This
> infrastructure may or may not be used for sinister designs. But can
> we take a chance, in a country where state agencies have such an
> awful record of arbitrariness, brutality and impunity?
>
> In fact, I suspect that the drive towards permanent state
> surveillance of all residents has already begun. UIDAI is no Big
> Brother, but could others be on the job? Take for instance Captain
> Raghu Raman (of the Mahindra Special Services Group), who is quietly
> building NATGRID on behalf of the Home Ministry. His columns in the
> business media make for chilling reading. Captain Raman believes that
> growing inequality is a “powder keg waiting for a spark,” and
> advocates corporate takeover of internal security (including a
> “private territorial army”), to enable the “commercial czars” to
> “protect their empires.” The Maoists sound like choir boys in
> comparison.
>
> There are equally troubling questions about the “NIDAI Bill,”
> starting with why it was drafted by UIDAI itself. Not surprisingly,
> the draft Bill gives enormous powers to UIDAI's successor, NIDAI —
> and with minimal safeguards. To illustrate, the Bill empowers NIDAI
> to decide the biometric and demographic information required for an
> Aadhaar number (Section 23); “specify the usage and applicability of
> the Aadhaar number for delivery of various benefits and
> services” (Section 23); authorise whoever it wishes to “maintain the
> Central Identities Data Repository” (Section 7) or even to exercise
> any of its own “powers and functions” (Section 51); and dictate all
> the relevant “regulations” (Section 54).
>
> Ordinary citizens, for their part, are powerless: they have no right
> to a UID number except on NIDAI's terms, no right to correction of
> inaccurate data, and — last but not least — no specific means to
> redress grievances. In fact, believe it or not, the Bill states (in
> Section 46) that “no court shall take cognisance of any offence
> punishable under this Act” except based on a complaint authorised by
> NIDAI.
>
> So, is UID a facility or a calamity? It depends for whom. For the
> intelligence agencies, bank managers, the corporate sector, and
> NIDAI, it will be a facility and a blessing. For ordinary citizens,
> especially the poor and marginalised, it could well be a calamity.
>
> (The author is Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics,
> University of Allahabad and Member of the National Advisory Council.)
>
>
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>
>
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