Unmasking Aadhaar

The mindless, mandatory biometric linkage of Aadhaar numbers to every aspect of our lives -- from birth to death, telephones and bank accounts -- is causing widespread harassment. The hype that biometric identification was a gift to citizens and a world-beating technological leap is a fallacy. People who are wary about the risks involved in Aadhaar linkages has now risen dramatically, with details of its fallibility being widely reported. But the continued coercive tactics by service providers and regulators indicate that the UIDAI and the government are in no mood to listen.

• (1) There is growing evidence of how inefficient biometric identification in Aadhaar is. 
• (2) Aadhaar is not merely about acquiring an identification number; there will be a cost/fee involved in every authentication and updation. The government has maintained a stunning silence on the cost of updation and other mandatory services.
• (3) Most people are realizing that biometrics change over a lifetime. This means that Aadhaar authentication can fail anytime and would need frequent updating especially for senior citizens. If you find it frustrating to update bank KYC information, get prepared for perpetual harassment when ever your biometrics let you down.
• Aadhaar is a nightmare for vulnerable, less-literate people and disempowering for senior citizens who will need to rely on Aadhaar kendras or bank officials for updation.
• UIDAI appoints enrollers and mandates linkages, but provides no recourse to those who are cheated by agents. If you are a victim, you will end up fighting a legal battle or chasing the police for redress.
• The effort involved in the Aadhaar updation exercise will make us even more reluctant to change service-providers and put up with shoddy service. This makes a mockery of competition and choice in a free market.
• IDRBT, a subsidiary of the RBI, has called for caution in use of Aadhaar for government programmes, based on a study of its implementation in AP. It says that it is also unclear if, in the long run, the benefits of Aadhaar will outweigh the negatives.
• On Dec 1,2017, Premani Kunwar, a 64-year old widow died of starvation. Her Aadhaar-linked bank account was manipulated to fraudulently transfer her old-age pension into the account of her husband's first wife. Denied income and rations, she slowly starved. Shockingly, the first wife had a valid bank account with updated KYC (presumably Aadhaar-linked) to which funds were transferred, even 25 years after her death. The case reeks of collusion between bank officials and a stepson, who has been arrested, and exposes the easy manipulation of records and its devastating impact on the very poor.
• Ravindra, a 64-year-old central government officer, who, harried by repeated failure of Aadhaar authentication, wrote, "I am desperate and sometimes start thinking of ending of my life." Writing to the UIDAI was of no use. Instead, he received gratuitous advice to procure a phone in his son's name, thereby defeating the purpose of linkage, disempowering the senior citizen and placing a needless burden on his son.
• Neither the government nor the UIDAI has bothered to respond to thousands of such senior citizens complaints on the National Consumer Complaints Forum.
• What is worse, a government that is in the habit of repeatedly changing its goalposts is not called upon to explain its claim that it will help unearth black money.
• UIDAI's response to criticism has been to browbeat and silence critics. When The Tribune exposed its vulnerability by gaining access to the UIDAI database (not biometrics) by paying just Rs 500 to an intermediary, it reacted by filing a police report. When this led to a media uproar, the government back-pedalled quickly.
• The UIDAI has also announced the introduction of 16-digit virtual ID and facial recognition for better security, and to address the issue of failed authentication for citizens. In case the apex court does not grant relief to the petitioners, we are all in for rough times, while the UIDAI experiments with new technologies whose cost, efficacy and availability across the country are unknown.

Read the source article

The reckless linking of Aadhaar with all services and transactions undermines citizen's privacy rights and is unacceptable in a democracy especially without any robust privacy laws and misuse recourse obligations. This falls short of a 'surveillance state' where all citizens must prove their credentials for each and every transaction they may make just for administrative convenience of irresponsible bureaucracy and for luxurious spending by political classes. This must not be allowed. Aadhaar must be confined to providing unique ID card and for efficient distribution of government subsidies and benefits only. Noting more and nothing less. Biometric verification should always be voluntary and never mandatory for all citizens, except for criminals.

Aadhaar benefits unclear

The benefits of Aadhaar, India’s biometrics-based unique national identity system, are unclear and the impact of direct benefit transfers it will be used to deliver to the poor is not studied enough, as per a new study paper published by Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), an autonomous institute established by the RBI. 

• In the seven years following its introduction, 1.12 billion Indians or 88.2% of the population have enrolled for Aadhaar.
• Established by UIDAI under Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, Aadhaar is now used for direct benefit transfers as well as distribution of food grains and essential commodities under the PDS by the state. It includes various payments linked through Aadhaar enabled payment system.
• There are issues related to Aadhaar such as last mile access problems, quality of authentication, unclear financial benefits and security concerns and said there needs to be caution in the manner in which the government is linking more economic activities with Aadhaar.
• Aadhaar has been caught in the issue of the citizen’s right to privacy and threat of information leak. The story reported in The Tribune on January 3, 2018 alleged that unrestricted access to details of over one billion Aadhaar numbers can be purchased at as little as Rs 500.
•  “It is a major security breach,” the deputy director of UIDAI, Chandigarh was quoted to have said.
• The protection of the data is a major concern for the UIDAI. For the first time in the history of India, there is now a readily available single target for cyber criminals as well as India’s external enemies. Any attack on UIDAI data can cripple Indian businesses and administration and would result in a huge loss to the country’s economy and the privacy of its citizens.
• Aadhaar is available in the database of a large number of service providers and any breach can compromise the information contained in it. This allows private players to build an ecosystem, i.e. services and applications around Aadhaar raises questions about the security of the database.
• In Dec 2017, it was found that Airtel used the Aadhaar based verification to open payment bank accounts of their customers without their consent and linked to receive LPG subsidy. No action was taken by the UIDAI for the violation of the Aadhaar Bill except barring Bharti Airtel and Airtel Payment Bank from opening new accounts. 
• More robust and comprehensive law is necessary on the use and misuse of the massive amount of data being generated and collected.
• Financial inclusion was one of the goals Aadhaar since inception, but a biometric solution tends to be long on promise and short on delivery.
• The growing emphasis on the use of Aadhaar as a compulsory ‘know your customer’ (KYC) norm is emerging as an obstacle in banking access for those who had registered with the earlier systems. Banks have blocked access to those who have not submitted their Aadhaar numbers. In the case of accounts closed by banks due to non-linking with Aadhaar, money has returned to government agencies. The customer then has to open a new bank account in another bank and then run to various government offices to change their bank account number registered under the scheme.
• Problems with withdrawal of money at a time when it is needed the most either due to non-working channels or problems with KYC compliance has convinced people that the best place for their money is their pocket or at home under the mattress.
• Customers of zero balance accounts opened for individuals are not allowed access to their accounts from non-home branches, but regular accounts are.
• Government claims that it has saved about Rs 14,672 crore using Aadhaar through DBT schemes for 2015-16. But a Canadian non-profit, International Institute of Sustainable Development, has claimed that the saved amount was Rs.120 crores only. 
• Does the change in the system of subsidy delivery from providing commodities and services to cash transfers actually benefit the poor? There are no clear answers. 
• It may inconvenience public distribution system beneficiaries and “the long-term benefits of DBT on the poor are as yet largely unstudied and most of the expectations are based on theoretical assumptions”.
• The Aadhaar Act allows the government to establish the citizen’s identity as a condition for the delivery of subsidies, benefits or services. Biometric authentication allows the government to reach genuine beneficiaries. But for this, the biometric authentication system has to be flawless which is not the case in India currently. Failures in biometric authentication is alarmingly high.
• Aadhaar allows a beneficiary to access benefits like PDS in any location irrespective of where he is registered. Authentications and failures were found to be the highest when a large number of people–migrants and non-migrants were present in the village. 
• These flaws in the biometric system raised the question if a government can provide benefits to citizens irrespective of where his/her Aadhaar was registered.
• There is no way of cross verifying the quality of biometrics stored, especially by the person who has enrolled. In a worst case scenario, a flawed biometric authentication system can lead to identity denials.
• Even assuming that only 5% of Indians are denied government benefits due to issues with Aadhaar, we are still looking at 50 million citizens. That is more than population of many European countries. 
• Does it mean this exclusion of a small minority is condonable in a democratic society?

Read the source article

It is clear that no studies were conducted about the feasibility, benefits and procedure to be followed for linking Aadhaar with all public economic activities. What ever came into the stupid minds of rulers and their assistants is being implemented subjecting crores of people to hardships and exposing them to unknown risks. Who wants all his transactions to be trackable either for tax payment purpose or as a matter of individual privacy? In any case Govt publicizing lies as a justification for its hare brained activities is unacceptable nonsense.

Aadhaar data insecure

  

The Tribune dated Jan 4, 2018

Read the source article

Aadhaar data and its insecurity and absence of robust privacy protection laws, linking Aadhaar to all bank accounts etc can become catastrophe. Government has no right to expose citizens and their money to risks of losing.

Aadhaar linking should be restricted only to Government welfare schemes & subsidies and at the worst to mobile phones. Nothing more than that. Individual financial data must never be accessible to unauthorized entities under any circumstances.

Even though UIDAI assures Aadhaar data is fully safe, it is not really safe as glitches exist and not fool proof. Robust privacy laws must restrict individual data and unbridled access to database. Especially banks and financial institutional data accessing by unauthorized parties must be eliminated. Any financial loss arising out of unauthorised accessing of data must be borne by UIDAI/GoI/Bank only and customer must not be subjected to any loss or inconvenience.

Gujarat model OR Gujarat muddle?

Scholars have shown that Gujarat’s development achievements are actually far from dazzling. The State has grown fast in the last twenty years. And anyone who travels around Gujarat is bound to notice the good roads, mushrooming factories, and regular power supply. But what about people’s living conditions? Whether we look at poverty, nutrition, education, health or related indicators, the dominant pattern is one of indifferent outcomes. Gujarat is doing a little better than the all-India average in many respects, but there is nothing there that justifies it being called a “model.” Anyone who doubts this can download the latest National Family Health Survey report and verify the facts.

• Development economist and activist John Dreze today said there was "no evidence" that the so-called "Gujarat Model" was a model in any sense, pointing out to the state's backwardness in social indicators.
• Almost all ranking of development indicators, whether it is social indicators, human development index, child development index, multi-dimensional poverty index and all the standard poverty indexes of the planning commission. Gujarat almost always comes around the middle.
• It was the case much before Modi became chief minister and it remained the case after that, said Dreze, who helped draft the first version of NREGA (now called the MNREGA).
• He describes the Gujarat's development model as a counter-example, because of the disappointing social indicators inspite of the high growth in terms of standard economic indicators.
• Dreze believes that something lacking and it can be an illustration of the limitations of relying on private-enterprise growth for development in the larger sense.
• Commenting on ratings-agency Moody's recent upgrade of India's sovereign-credit rating to 'Baa2' from 'Baa3', Dreze says he doubts the credibility of such an index. "If you dig into the methods behind these indexes, there is very little to them, except that they are taken seriously!"
• He also raised concerns about the Aadhaar scheme, fearing that it will create an infrastructure of surveillance. His opposition to Aadhaar was not related to welfare programmes, but civil liberties. Aadhaar multiplies the power of the state to keep track of everybody over time - he said, flagging apprehensions that it could lead to stifling of dissent, as a lot of the databases that are going to be linked will become accessible to the government.
• Dreze partly blamed the stagnation of agricultural growth for the unrest and the recent agitations of Patidars, Jats and others for reservations. The people, who have seen the size of their landholding shrink with the population explosion in the last few decades, have certainly suffered. That creates a sense of grievance, but there must be other things also.

 

Read the article "Gujarat Muddle" dated April 11, 2014

Any development model with Public Private Partnership (PPP) is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable because it enables few enterprising people become extraordinarily rich at the state expense, breeding corruption and impoverishes the state and its people. The state ends up paying huge amounts of money in future payments in the range of 2-10 times. Consequently rich poor divide will increase. Modi's Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train is another white elephant in disguise which will enable Japan loot away our money perennially. Development based on market borrowing is not development at all but is similar to selling family silver for fancy expenses. 

Aadhaar makes citizens more vulnerable

Last year Delhi Police busted an ISI spy ring and found that Mehmood Akhtar had an Aadhaar card naming him as Mehboob Rajput. In May this year, the Central Crime Branch found that three Pakistanis had obtained Aadhaar cards in Bengaluru through a middleman for Rs 100 each. More recently, Zeebo Asalina, an Uzbek national arrested in Orissa, had an Aadhaar card naming her as Duniya Khan.

• The perception that security agencies may have a better chance of nabbing potential terrorists if all mobile connections are verified using Aadhaar is flawed. Since Aadhaar cards were based on forged documents and UIDAI does not conduct any verification by itself, it retains the flaws of these documents and is not ‘fraud-resistant’. In fact, once they have Aadhaar, things may get easier for potential terrorists, given the incorrect perception that it is foolproof.
• Paper IDs are not good for privacy since they can be reused for other purposes. But Aadhaar is worse, because once data is shared with hundreds of third parties, it is no longer secure. 
• Electronic KYC is cheaper for telecom operators and banks, it is costlier for citizens. The cost of the loss of personal information is much higher than the benefit of collecting it. UIDAI has no control once data leaves its system via eKYC, which has a tick-box approach to consent and no checks thereafter.
• The risk of personal information leaks increases with more services getting linked to Aadhaar due to security vulnerabilities, or sheer incompetence of the government or third parties.
• Disclosure of Aadhaar numbers is illegal as per Section 29 (4) of the Aadhaar Act.
• Whereas RTI Act makes it mandatory for every public authority to publish the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries of such programmes. This is conflict with Aadhaar Act.
• Biometrics are the least secure form of authentication. They can be cloned from photographs, and you leave fingerprints on every glass of water you pick up.
• Estonia had to suspend its digital ID cards due to cybersecurity related vulnerabilities. Spain is facing similar issues. 
• The government’s cavalier attitude towards privacy that privacy cannot be at the cost of innovation indicates its willingness to put citizens’ personal safety at risk: that your privacy is a price that GoI is willing to pay for making it easier for businesses to be built around your data.
• Data for millions of people has already been compromised by the government, the allegation that critics are “alarmists” and “motivated” is a tactic to divert attention from badly designed architecture, execution mistakes, security failures and the yet-to be-addressed risks.
• While there are some benefits that might accrue from customisation of thousands of services that might otherwise not have had your data, a government that forcibly takes sensitive and personal information from you, and a court that has allowed this to happen despite appeals to stop it, has acted against you and 1.3 billion others.
• All your data, linked to a single ID and accessible to the government under unspecified ‘national security’ considerations, without sufficient checks and balances and judicial oversight, is also dangerous in the hands of a future government that might look to retain power by any means necessary. 
• Mass surveillance for which Aadhaar is an enabler, is an unnecessary and disproportionate infringement of rights, and dangerous for democracy. 
• With Aadhaar numbers littered all over the web, anyone can create a dossier of personal information by finding and joining datasets bases with the Aadhaar number and hence stating that Aadhaar is not a secret or confidential number is misleading and dangerous.
• Publishing a person’s caste, Aadhaar number, or mobile number or emailids is an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual and serves no public interest but the leaked info can also cause financial loss. It opens doors for fraudsters to perform attacks on unsuspecting individuals.
• Publishing of last four digits of Aadhaar number only might not satisfy the provisions of both RTI and the Aadhaar Acts. Publishing Aadhaar number, full or partial, on the open web will put too many unsuspecting people at risk. It’s illegal for UIDAI to pass the buck and act innocent about data leaks. It needs to get across to users of Aadhaar data to follow the law or be held responsible.
• Instead of blaming the transparency requirements of the RTI, UIDAI must be pressurised to enforce its agreements with its partners. Whether you call it a data leak or not, doesn’t reduce the harm done if the authorities continue to publish Aadhaar details on the open web.

Government can't make citizens safer by making them more vulnerable.

The issue is not about Aadhaar as a tool in identification, but of linking it with everything under the sun is gross violation of privacy by government. While linking Aadhaar as remedy to plug leakages of government subsidies is well taken but forcefully linking it to all IDs is as imprudent as having one password for all your transactions which exponentially increases vulnerability. There would be little remedy to assaults by fraudsters on systems that are indiscriminately cross-linked. In the absence of robust data security environment, stringent privacy laws and meticulous penal agreements for any kind of data leakage or misusing, Government has no business to make Aadhaar linking mandatory to all citizen IDs and exposing them to security threats and unknown & unmitigated financial losses.

Privacy is a fundamental right - annotations

The Supreme Court’s landmark judgment elevating the right to privacy as a fundamental right is a significant reminder of India’s republican values and their relevance to all classes of people.

• After 70 years of Independence, it would have been highly unpopular for India’s Supreme Court, and any of its judges, to subscribe to a proposition that ran counter to the liberal ethos of the times. 
• Any judge expressing a dissenting view could have run the risk of being seen on the wrong side of history.
• The right to privacy was demanded by only those who had something to hide, said Rakesh Dwivedi, senior counsel for Gujarat. 
• The right to privacy had no relevance for the hungry millions, said the Attorney General, K.K. Venugopal. Privacy was just a facet of liberty, and being amorphous, it could not be elevated to the status of a fundamental right, was the refrain of many respondents before the court.
• Justice Chandrachud - the validity of a law which infringes the fundamental rights has to be tested not with reference to the object of state action, but on the basis of its effect on the guarantees of freedom.
• In a democratic Constitution founded on the rule of law, their rights are as sacred as those conferred on other citizens to protect their freedoms and liberties.
• The invasion of a fundamental right was not rendered tolerable when a few were subjected to hostile treatment.
• The refrain that the poor need no civil and political rights and are concerned only with economic well-being has been utilised through history to wreak the most egregious violations of human rights.
• It is the right to question, the right to scrutinise and the right to dissent which enables an informed citizenry to scrutinise the actions of government.
• The theory that civil and political rights are subservient to socio-economic rights has been urged in the past and has been categorically rejected by this court.
• The right to privacy is too amorphous to be defined in specific terms and that it should be left to evolve from case to case. 
• A restrictive definition of the right to privacy specifying what it included could hamper its growth in the future. 
• The right to privacy was a fundamental right, without specifying its contours, could limit the state’s pursuit of its development agenda.
• Justice Chandrachud, while agreeing that privacy must be left to evolve case to case, laid down three grounds to justify an invasion of privacy. They are existence of a law, a legitimate state aim suffering from no arbitrariness, and proportionality of the means to the object . 
• The sharing of biometric data, which the Aadhaar scheme entails, involves many facets of the right to privacy.

Petitions challenging the Aadhaar Act will now be heard and decided by regular benches of the Supreme Court in the light of the privacy judgment.

It would have been nice if centre had recognised privacy is a fundamental right made laws attenuating Aadhaar and treated citizens with respect. But it is too much to expect such good things from autocratic Modi. Now privacy has become a fundamental right not by virtue of a constitutional provision nor by an act of parliament but by a judgement of a Supreme Court constitutional bench. This is not the best way. And if centre instead of respecting judgement gracefully searches ways and methods to surreptitiously push Aadhaar for citizen's surveillance and undermine citizens rights they would meet waterloo again and again. BJP & NDA and all parties must realize that they are in power for the citizens welfare and not other way round. But Modi & BJP are notorious for not learning lessons but will attempt to bulldoze on people with their stupid thinking.

Chest thumping will come back to haunt us

• Any monetary economist would say don't do it (demonetisation) until you have all the money printed.
• If you take poll of monetary economists, they would tell you that on the day you actually do it, you should be prepared to replace as much currency as needed for transactions. Otherwise it will cause a reduction of economic activity.
• Monetary economists would say, be ready to replace on day one everything that was used for transactions. A significant fraction of that, not all 86%, but enough so that anybody who wanted money will be able to take it out from ATMs.
• There are channels through which government can by pass RBI legally (like 1978 demonetisation ordinance).
• Ultimately if Governor disagrees - Dr. YV Reddy had a interesting response to what he would have done! - He said he would have gone to the hospital and then resigned on health grounds. Now some people can't go to the hospital they look the picture of health.
• All bank accounts could be linked to Aadhaar, keeping in mind the privacy issues. There are privacy issues and there are issues of tax collection. So long as you make sure that every revenue officer cannot start fishing in that database and lot of it is automated and you can only go into it when those suspicious transactions are flagged and ordinary citizen's privacy is protected. That is the way to reduce the flow.
• We have to recognise that we are dealing with the government employees as they are, not how we wish they would be. The reality is that there is some corruption in the government also. To give license to some areas of government (like tax officers) without checks and balances could enhance corruption.
• If you look at digitisation, we saw a blip up and then looked down after the stress period was over.
• India was growing at about 7.5 to 8 per cent at the point of demonetisation. We have come down substantially and some of this has been because of demonetisation. The world economy is going stronger than at this time last year and in that sense we should be going up with the tide and should have moved up with the growth. In fact, it has moved down. There are three factors: one is the stress in the banking system and the bad loan situation, the second is the demonetisation shock and the third is the anticipation of the goods and services tax (GST). At this point, our growth is not anything to write home about. Hopefully, these are temporary factors, but certainly we have to make sure that our business people feel more confident that there are no more surprises.
• I don’t think the RBI has been undermined, because ultimately this decision belongs to the government. 
• There has always been a tension between the finance ministry and the RBI. The finance ministry likes to believe that the RBI is one of its organs, and the RBI correctly believes that it is a Central bank and not just another regulator who is at the beck and call of the ministry’s bureaucrats. The tension about this is partly because the position of the RBI governor hasn’t been clearly established within the system. On the one hand, you have chief ministers saying ‘sir’ to you, and on the other, you have secretaries claiming that they have authority over you.
• Constant bickering is not particularly good. It takes away from you the time you have to devote to more important things.
• I was trying to say, ‘Let’s not be complacent’. We have problems; our real problems start when we thump ourselves on the chest and say how well we are doing and then don’t pay attention to the fact that there is so much more to be done. These things, like the thumping of the chest, will come back to haunt you. Let others praise you, let others give you kudos. But don’t keep boasting, because the media will take it up for a little while, but investors remember. My point was—here’s some good stuff but we have to be careful that we are not complacent. And it was taken here as me being derisive; that was clearly not the intent. We have to be much less boastful and much more focused on the work that needs to be done.
• Our future, that this is the India you want to build, not an intolerant India.
• As a public servant, you also have a public responsibility. 
• You can’t stay in the job if you have serious differences with the government. 
• When there is an environment in the public that has not been created by the government—but it emerges—then you have a duty to say that this is not the way we should go as a country.
• There was a discussion of the Enforcement Directorate looking at over-invoicing, which was rampant. Why didn’t we go after that? That was very easy to catch.
• There was no obligation on the government’s part to extend my tenure, and similarly, there was no obligation on my part to stay on. The University of Chicago was not the constraint.

Chest thumping will come back to haunt us ... Raghuram Rajan

Privacy is a fundamental right

• A nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on August 24 unanimously ruled that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty” and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution. SC overruled previous judgments on the privacy issue that ruled that privacy is not a fundamental right.
• Justice Chandrachud in his judgment for himself, Chief Justice Khehar, R.K. Agrawal and S. Abdul Nazeer said that privacy is a concomitant of the right of the individual to exercise control over his or her personality. Natural rights like privacy are inalienable because they are inseparable from the human personality. To live is to live with dignity. Privacy with its attendant values assures dignity to the individual and it is only when life can be enjoyed with dignity can liberty be of true substance. Privacy ensures the fulfillment of dignity.
• The judgement also stated that - Like other rights which form part of the fundamental freedoms protected by Part III, including the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, privacy is not an absolute right. A law which encroaches upon privacy will have to withstand the touchstone of permissible restrictions on fundamental rights. In the context of Article 21 an invasion of privacy must be justified on the basis of a law which stipulates a procedure which is fair, just and reasonable. 
• The Union government had argued that privacy is a common law right. The government argued that right to privacy is not expressly included in the Constitution as the founding fathers rejected or jettisoned the idea of inclusion of privacy as a fundamental right. The centre had termed privacy as a "vague and amorphous" right which cannot be granted primacy to deprive poor people of their rights to life, food and shelter.
• The earlier Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi rejected suggestions that Indians could refuse to provide their iris scans or fingerprints to the government, telling a court "the concept of absolute right over one's body was a myth".
• The judgment will have a crucial bearing on the government’s Aadhaar scheme that collects personal details, biometrics to identify beneficiaries for accessing social benefits and government welfare scheme.
• A bunch of petitions were filed in the Supreme Court in 2015 challenging Aadhaar as a breach of privacy, informational self-determination and bodily integrity. The petitioners argued that Aadhaar enrolment was the means to a “Totalitarian State” and an open invitation for personal data leakage. 
• The government claimed Aadhaar was a panacea to end corruption in public distribution, money laundering and terror funding.
• Attorney general K K Venugopal had argued that right to privacy cannot be a fundamental right has now welcomed the SC decision. He said that whatever the 9-judge bench says is the correct law.
• Three days ago, PM Modi hailed the SC judgement on triple talak as "historic" and said it grants equality to Muslim women. Today on Privacy rights judgement of SC, he maintained stoic silence so far. He is yet to respond. Why?
• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the apex court has accepted the government’s argument that privacy is a fundamental right, but it’s not an absolute right but will be subjected to restrictions which will be fair, just and reasonable. He blamed that the privacy matter went to the Supreme Court because the UPA government brought about Aadhaar without a law. It is too late to contend that privacy will not be a fundamental right.
• Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made a somersault by welcoming the judgement but said should have "reasonable" restrictions. 
• Mukul Rohatgi said that the government should not have diluted their stand in court because the inclusion or exclusion of fundamental rights is only the proviso of Parliament. It is a very unsatisfactory resolution of the dispute. His view is that the framers of the constitution did not intend to make privacy a fundamental right. He said “The fact is, we haven’t won this case. The eight-judge bench of 1954 has been overruled and the Aadhaar issue has been left unresolved. So where is the question of winning?” Had he still been in office as Attorney General, he would have admitted that the government had lost the case.

Today's verdict is a major setback for the government, which had argued that the constitution does not guarantee individual privacy as an inalienable fundamental right. The verdict however does not comment on whether the government's demand for Aadhaar to be linked to all financial transactions amounts to an infringement of privacy. There are fears that the data could be misused by a government that argued Indians have no right to privacy.

Aadhaar has its uses, but it is also an instrument of control and manipulation. It must be only optional, not mandatory. Aadhaar had already violated the privacy rights with the vast majority of the population already enrolled, their information held in insecure databases, and linked to public and private services. Ambedkar's fears of abuse of constitution without amending it are coming true in Modi's India. In a democracy, ruled by majority, it is the duty of majority to uphold the rights & dignity of minorities. Ambedkar also remarked that democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic. Unfortunately Modi & co believes that minorities must toe line with majoritarian wishes with no individual rights etc.

Read the exhaustive article on the judgement

Is privacy a fundamental right?

The government is pushing for Aadhaar but critics say it violates privacy, is vulnerable to data breaches and helps government spy on people. The Centre has maintained that right to privacy is not a fundamental right and citizens are not guaranteed the right to privacy under the Indian Constitution. The petitioner’s counsel in the Aadhaar case, has compared the situation to one under a totalitarian state where people were being forcefully tagged and tracked by the Centre. The Supreme Court’s nine-judge constitution bench would revisit its rulings that said the right to privacy was not a fundamental right and then hear petitions against the 12-digit biometric identity number.

• An eight-judge bench in 1954 and also by a six-judge bench in 1962 ruled that privacy is not a fundamental right in the constitutional provisions. Textually it is correct today that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution. Even freedom of press is not expressly stated but courts has interpreted it.
• Whether there is any “right to privacy” guaranteed under our Constitution or not and if such a right exists, what is the source and what are the contours of such a right as there is no express provision in the constitution.
• Supreme Court in case after case realised that the rights to liberty and freedom of expression cannot survive if the right to privacy is compromised. Privacy is crucial in digital age. A democracy cannot exist without the Right to Privacy.
• Without right to privacy, the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India and more particularly the right to liberty under Article 21 would be denuded of vigour and vitality.
• Privacy can reside in several articles. Lack of privacy can have a chilling effect, triggering freedom of speech protections under Article 19(2). The question of protecting privacy could not depend on first determining the location of the right to privacy. History teaches us that without privacy, the consequences are unimaginable.
• The relationship of the right to privacy with Aadhaar enrolment is what complicates everything. The government is pushing for Aadhaar, saying it is necessary to plug leakages in subsidy schemes and to ensure benefits reach those targeted but critics say the move violates privacy, is vulnerable to data breaches and helps government spy on people.
• If the object of Aadhaar is smoothly functioning government benefit schemes, why give law enforcement agencies or indeed anyone else access to the database at all?
• The Aadhaar Bill has been passed with no public consultation about the privacy safeguards necessary for such a database and no provision for public or independent oversight. The rights to liberty and freedom of expression cannot survive if the right to privacy is compromised.
• Allowing Aadhaar to go ahead unchecked in the manner, seeking linking aadhaar to almost every transaction and aspect in life, is effectively reducing the citizen into a 12-digit number and transforming the country into a concentration camp for the citizens.
• Aadhaar has had an invasive and controversial presence well before the government’s attempt to legitimise it. Our Attorney General (funded by our taxes) has argued that we have no right to privacy. Attorney General KK Venugopal argument that the framers of India’s Constitution “consciously omitted” privacy as a fundamental right is his imagination in wrong direction. Any version of the Aadhaar Bill would have been subjected to close scrutiny. The Bill was deliberately mislabelled as a money bill to avoid scrutiny by Rajya Sabha creating even more suspicion.
• Privacy is an amorphous term which is not absolute and cannot prevent the State from making laws imposing reasonable restrictions on citizens. Attempting to define the right to privacy may cause more harm than good.
• In order to recognise privacy as a right, it would have to be defined first. But this would be a near impossible task as an element of privacy pervaded all fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.
• Right to privacy is a pre-existing natural right which is inherent in the Constitution, even though it is not explicitly mentioned. The right to privacy is recognised as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. The concept of privacy is embedded in liberty as well as a person's honour.
• Even if the court now finally finds that Aadhaar violates the right to privacy, the damage is already done with the vast majority of the population already enrolled, their information already held in insecure databases, and linked to public and private services. We should all, of course, be praying that the court finds that there are 40 years of consistent judicial support for a fundamental right to privacy, and this cannot be taken away by the government so callously.

Privacy is essential to autonomy and the protection of human dignity. Privacy enables us to create boundaries and protect ourselves from unwarranted interference in our lives. Privacy protects us from arbitrary and unjustified use of power by states, companies and other actors. It lets us regulate what can be known about us and done to us, while protecting us from others who may wish to exert control. Privacy is a fundamental human right. Over 130 countries have constitutional statements regarding the protection of privacy. Despite international human rights law, it’s all too common that privacy is violated by states and companies. While we should continue to fight for our privacy under the law, the best thing we can do as users to who value our right to anonymity, is to use internet tools. 

My View:
This BJP/NDA government headed by Modi by aggressively promoting expensive cashless transactions with artificial cash shortage is just like sales chief of those companies rather than leader of the nation. He has no respect for rights of citizens. His aim is to increase revenues not by promoting economic activity but by tracking almost all transactions and arm twisting people and collecting more taxes for funding his trophy projects and worthless ideas while leaving poor & peasants in distress. Can you imagine leader of largest democracy in the world arguing in Supreme Court that citizens, who elected him, have no right to privacy except what ever is granted by his stupid brains? His thinking doesn't understand that privacy is fundamental right of humans and doesn't require any constitution or laws for recognizing this.

Aadhaar issues

• The Unique Identification project was initially conceived to provide a unique identity number for each resident across the country and would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. 
• It would also act as a tool for monitoring of various programs and schemes of the Government.
• The objective was to eliminate pilferage and corruption in public distribution system and distribution of subsidies.
• The first UID number was issued on Sep 29, 2010 and 111 crore Aadhaar numbers were issued to the residents of India.
• The Aadhaar enrollment process is designed to allow anyone to get an Aadhaar without any documents mainly because Aadhaar is meant even for those sleep under the flyover.
• Aadhaar is premised on the infallibility and security of an individual’s bio-metric data is a myth. Debates focused on privacy concerns, security of the database and on the legality of making Aadhaar mandatory are unanswered so far. 
• Aadhaar is not an address proof, since the same was not verified and the entities that uses it as an address proof knows it but chooses to remain silent about it.
• Aadhaar is not a proof of citizenship, but can be used to either apply for a passport or obtain other identity documents that can then be used to apply for a passport.
• Aadhaar card can be downloaded and printed and can be considered “original”. UIDAI expects entities to authenticate the Aadhaar number based on OTP or bio-metrics by connecting to the UIDAI system, prior to usage.
• If UIDAI fixes these problems, they run the risk of Aadhaar's reduced usage and becoming irrelevant in public life. If they stay silent, they run the risk of something may go wrong at a large scale in the future.
• The Supreme Court reaffirmed that Aadhaar can only be a voluntary decision of the individual and that as long as a person is eligible to avail benefits and subsidies, the government cannot deny them those benefits and subsidies because one doesn't have an Aadhaar card. Despite this ruling, the central government decided to push through with these moves.
• The Aadhaar Bill was introduced as a money bill in the Lok Sabha which means that the Rajya Sabha could merely make suggestions and that passage through the Lok Sabha would turn the bill into an Act. This matter is being heard by Supreme Court.
• A survey conducted by Andhra Pradesh government saw 48% respondents citing Aadhaar issues as a reason for them missing out on subsidies and benefits. 
• India deals with frequent cyber attacks from China and Pakistan. Hacking the Aadhaar database would be an easy way for other countries to create disruption within India.
• There are many positives that a system like the Aadhaar will have for India. Aadhaar does make managing benefits easier for India but making it mandatory to avail benefit makes the Aadhaar database a prime target for exploitation. Forcing Aadhaar to be mandatory to file taxes opens up an argument on privacy rights. And the government’s argument of privacy not being fundamental does not help assuage any one.
• Since there is no room to verify whether the bio-metrics have been recorded correctly or not leaves scope for fraud of replacing a person’s bio-metric identity, by the enrollment operator, by uploading someone else’s bio-metrics of another person. 
• The bio-metrics is a changeable entity for reasons of ageing, manual labour, injury, illness, etc. and requires periodic update. There is no means to ascertain whether one or more of the bio-metrics is due for update or not until an authentication failure occurs. 
• Authentication using mobile OTP, as an alternative to bio-metrics failures, is an antithesis to bio-metric identity, as it essentially considers a person’s mobile no. to be his unique ID. In banking transactions OTP is another layer of security for transactions.
• There are many ways to commit an Aadhaar-enabled fraud. The potential gains from Aadhaar related fraud are huge, so we should expect people to invest their time, effort and money to stay ahead of the system.

If King disrespects the law, so will his subjects.

My View:
Aadhaar should be issued to resident citizens with validity of ten years. Foreigners resident in India could be issued Aadhaar with different color and validity of one year. Illegal immigrants must never be issued Aadhaar. The issuing criterion and procedure should be made stringent and infallible like passports & driving licenses. The original Aadhaar card with security features should alone be allowed to be used as ID proof, and address proof should be correlated with a recent document like utility bill or post office issued address proof document. Otherwise the intended objectives achievement failure is likely. In this society ruled and administered by crooks & rogues, fraudsters will always find a way to evade taxes and more and more procedures will only end up in harassing honest and gullible citizens. The recent demonetization is a classic example. Aadhaar is a very good idea, badly designed and even more badly implemented.

Police quizzes Isreali PM Netanyahu for suspected of graf

If our Prime Minister Modi has an iota of sincerity in his recent demonetization histrionics over eliminating black money, corruption etc, he should at once appoint Lokpal with purview including all political office bearers (including PM, President, Governor, CM, Ministers etc), officials, judiciary, businessmen and grant autonomy and teeth to RTI, CVC, CBI and ACB etc and then only people will believe him to some extent. Otherwise all his talk is just 'bakwas'.

While I am not Congress admirer either, it is pertinent to know that UID Aadhaar was Manmohan Singh's brain child to reduce black money and benami properties and RTI as well which gives citizen rights to know what is happening in corridors of power.

My View:
The framers of constitution Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Patel Ambedkar thought that persons holding very high offices (President, PM etc) would be as good as them and they thought fit to exclude these office bearers so that they could focus on taking far reaching decisions with ease and without distraction. After 70 years the reality is opposite. Hence it is important for Modi to introduce and maintain transparency and accountability in public domain starting with himself (ironically he talked about these too much during demonetization days, while he did this quack advised demonetization in highly deplorable and autocratic way and landed the nation in turmoil), otherwise he will go down history as a biggest national traitor. My gut feeling is that he will not, because he is not as tall as he projects himself. He is simply a demagogue with insatiable desire for publicity.

Black Money Menace

Money can be got from three sources - earnings, inheritance & gifts/borrowings. Any other way is corruption and black money.

During Second World War time high inflation and essential commodities shortages people made huge profits by dealing in items in short supply than from production and expansion of business. This has resulted in commodity hoarding activity and black money generation by traders. Post independence, license raj policy led to its misuse by a coterie of power to amass unaccounted wealth in return for favors to some businesses. Today people from all walks of life talk and deal with black money so casually indicating social acceptance of corruption & black money.

• Black money refers to the income on which tax has been totally or partly evaded. 
• Part of this money is utilized for consumption and part for hoarding or investment.
• It causes huge losses in tax revenues to the government.
• The circulation of black money gives rise to a ‘parallel economy’.
• The money involved in illegal transactions is estimated to nearing 50% of GDP.
• Annual growth rate of black money in India is higher than the annual growth-rate of its GDP.
• Black money cripples the free flow of a country's resources in the right direction.
• Black money also widens the income gap.
• Lower rung of the salaried individuals do not see their incomes rising unlike those in the higher echelons who has access to black money sources.
• Tax rates on higher incomes and excess profits prompted many to resort to black marketing and tax evasive measures.
• In the past, the marginal income tax rate was as high as 75% (while it was even 100% when combined with wealth taxes) prompting individuals to evade taxes. 
• Widespread corruption in almost all the departments has rendered tax laws enforcement very weak and ineffective.
• During past 30-40 years, real estate and precious metals & stones have become safe parking for unaccounted black money especially for corrupt politicians, bureaucrats & businessmen. This has led to sharp rise in real estate prices and today a owning home has just become unaffordable for lower & middle classes.
• Black money is also parked in so-called safe tax havens overseas and this way, country also unwittingly becomes a ‘de facto’ lender of capital to more advanced and wealthier nations.
• High tax rates prompted businessmen to evade them, which set off a chain reaction down to the wholesale, retail and production levels.
• Millions of rupees are spent on marriages, functions, parties, all sourced from untaxed funds. With excellent rapport between black money operators and politicians, the Income Tax. department fails to arrest the menace. Voluntary Disclosure Schemes produced limited results.
• It is only the rich who evade taxes.
• India is actually a capitalist economy and black money cannot be entirely controlled. However, it can be limited and brought to manageable limits.
• Black money needs ‘muscle power’ for its protection and proliferation as well as accounting experts, liaison officers who negotiate between black money operators and political leaders, threatening to corrupt the entire social and political fabric of the country.
• Weak justice disposal systems and low conviction rates make corruption a high profit and low risk activity.

Remedial measures:

1. Mandatory moral & ethical education.
2. Create awareness among citizens that obtaining services is their right and they need not and should not pay bribes and promote corruption.
3. Demonetization of high value currency notes.
4. Discourage cash payments by providing incentives for payments in any mode other than cash.
5. Promote payments using credit & debit cards, bank transfers, linking Aadhaar numbers to all bank accounts and transactions should be made mandatory enabling tracking.
6. Stringent penalties and punishments for violations.
7. Simplify tax structures and minimize stamp duties with incentives for compliance.
8. Make tax evasion so much expensive and unprofitable.
9. Corruption is off shoot of high profits and low risk. Take measures to make it high risk and low profit activity.