Aadhaar and privacy

Vikram Singh
Sunil Kumar
Shubham Kashyap

Origin of Aadhaar
According to some reports after ending of Kargil war some issues related to
security were highlighted so the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee started
thinking about the citizens to be accounted for. The desire of providing
everyone a identity moulded the whole process into the National Population
Register. A citizenship act was introduced in India in 1955, this was
reconfigured by government in 2004 and this was done to support National
Population Register (NPR). The next attempt was done in 2009. With increasing
welfare bureaucrats in the erstwhile planning commission were worried about
leakages. In order to avoid leakage, the idea of creating an authority for
safeguarding all information for social welfare came into response. In the
sequence, the foundation of "Aadhaar scheme" was laid in 2009.

Backgraound
A few decades ago Indian Government introduced some plans for individuals
Identification so the new concept of National identification is not new for Indian
residents. In 1993 Government of India introduced a photo identification card
for residents but it was associated with some issues so in 2003, Election
Commission of Indian made some changes and approved it as Multipurpose
National Identity Card. In 2009, Indian Government introduced globes biggest
IT project under planning commission and later they gave this responsibility to
Ministry of electronics and Information Technology and created Unique
Identification Authority of India in 2016, this project is about to provide each
resident a unique twelve digit number as an Unique ID (UID). These twelve
number UID termed as “Aadhaar”.
This identification consists some Demographic and Biometric
information’s of card holder. Demographic information are name, age, place
where you live, income and marriage status etc and Biometric information are
one photograph, 10 fingerprints and two iris scans, these data are stored in a
centralized database. The center of UIDAI database is situated at Industrial
Model Township, Manesar(Gurugram) and it was inaugurated by chief minister
of Haryana Mr. Bhupendra Singh Hudda in 2013.
In a press conference, the chairman of UIDAI talked about three methods
in which he addressed how to get Unique Identity Number:
(i) Produce a set of documents to establish the Identity.
(ii) Use some details registered in National Population Register (NPR) or these
can belong to gram panchayat or ward office.
(iii) In this approach somebody can use an introducer but this introducer will be
provided by UIDAI.

Different countries across the world provided their residents some different
identity time to time. Some countries applied national identity scheme for
identification purpose but social welfare is also an important intention. There
are many policy makers for Governments of different nations who draws some
frame work to find the possibilities in order to applying National Identity. These
are some objective for providing unique identification to the citizens.
(i) Betterment of security through finding out the frauds.
(ii) Protection against terrorism.
(iii) Control illegal immigration
(iv) Social welfare

Aadhaar as digital Identity

Indian residents today have several forms of identity for different purposes,
such as a voter ID card, a ration card for accessing the public distribution
system, a Permanent Account Number (PAN) card for tax registration, a driver’s
license, and a passport. The government proposed creating a single biometric
identification system that would be housed in and monitored by the UIDAI and
that would allow a more accurate picture of Indian residents and their access to
and use of public services. In other words, Aadhaar is an online identity which
consists electronic signature in form of biometric information. In future this will
be only card or it can replace other cards like PAN, Voter card, Driving license.

Voter
PAN Aadhaar
Card

Driving
License
There are some issues associated with any Unique ID because of that the
plan/scheme founded around the questions. These issues can be
(i) Political challenges
(ii) Privacy Issues
(iii) Technology gaps
Some developed countries said that misuse of data can happen in a centralized
system.

Also, it was a debatable issue regarding its implication in a country like India
where the total population is over 1.2 billion and which is distributed over 32
lacs square km area, where people are not much literate, where culture, religion,
language and thought process is diverged, where lack of the clear vision can be
there.
Till 30th April 2018, over 1.1 billion Aadhaar cards were issued which is
around 88% of the total population. In order to highest percentage Delhi is at
top with 116%. Here total registered population is 18,345,784 (projected) and
total issued cards are 21375831.

Evaluation of the opportunities

However, this is a matter of debate, where many such questions arise that how
many such IDs will be created for so many people? who the authority will
manage? how they will aware the people? But a lot of possibilities are there and
they will keep coming up with time. The question of the critics was that how
effective it would be according to the promises of its backers. The complaint of
the Civil Liberty Group was that the government is seeking many personal
information without any adequate protection. There were debates in the Lok
Sabha to close this scheme, it was stated that no such scheme was there in
developed counties like America, United Kingdom, Australia and Germany etc.
Countering to this it was said that any scheme is made according to the specific
needs of any country.
The main purpose of this scheme is not only to give a unique identity to
the citizens but it but its other purposes are to give the advantages of
government schemes directly to the beneficiaries and to provide suitable
subsidy to everyone. Its main purpose is to advance the inclusive growth.

Claimed Benefits and Perceived Issues

This scheme is seen as a very beneficial weapon through which it will be easy
to transfer the profits of any social welfare scheme to the marginalized
population. This plan will find out the fundamental causes of poverty in
marginalized area and this may also be able to work for poverty alleviation.
It is known that the system and related departments are responsible for the
ineffective and inefficient social welfare schemes. So, it would be interesting to
know how well the promises made by UIDAI prove to be beneficial on real
ground.

Financial Inclusion
The benefits of which the UIDAI claims, financial inclusion is one of them
because they say that they all make things identical to for all (poor and
homeless) by providing similar identity to them. These days the Aadhaar card is
mandatory all the way as the Aadhaar card is required to open the bank account.
In order to make their Aadhaar number officially valid document, a scheme
named KYC (Know Your Customer) is in the running and this will be helpful in
financial inclusion.
Now here the question arises that as UIDAI says that they are providing
unique identification numbers to all even to the marginalized population,
through which financial inclusion will be done, but the absence of financial
inclusion is due to lack of identity of the citizen or there is some error in the
system?
The country has faced a lot of schemes through which Finance Ministry
and Reserve Bank of India have tried to implement the financial inclusion like
the government made a provision for opening of “zero balance bank accounts”
and these accounts were linked to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee act (MNREGA). But what if these zero-balance bank
account have never operated by the account holders? This thing raises questions
about the maintenance and economic viability of these unused accounts.

Public Distribution System (PDS)

It is known that in the Public Distribution System process many cases of
rampant and rigging can be seen. Such ill activities appear due to lacking in
transparency in the system. But the Aadhaar scheme says that after the
implementation of this scheme, such cases will be reduced because this will
introduce transparency in Public Distribution System process and this will be
possible if state governments will cooperate with central government.
But according to scroll report state governments are facing problems in
installing such system in PDS shops.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was launched in 2006, under
which there is a provision of 100 days guaranteed employment in 1 year for
each and every person, its main objective is to improve the economic condition
of the villages and to improve the standard of living of the people there. In the
initial period, the workers of NREGA were paid in cash mode through post
office, in which cases of many frauds were reported such as the workers paid
less as compare to their actual wages. In order to reduce such incidents which
were happening due some intermediate, bank accounts opened under "Jan Dhan
Aadhaar Yojana" and NAREGA’s job card have been linked to Aadhaar card
and NREGA's salary is directly transferred to their bank account. So Aadhaar
makes this process transparent.

Some people believe that the Aadhaar number is only providing identity, it does
not have anything special from citizenship. Also, the Ministry of Home Affairs
has informed that some Bangladeshi people also have unique Aadhaar number
and its reason is the porosity of Indo-Bangla border. It was also concerned in the
Lok Sabha that UIDAI should ensure that illegal immigrants are kept away from
the unique Aadhaar numbers. But UIDAI did not respond specifically to illegal
immigrants UID. Thus, the Unique Identification number proposed to be given
would prove only identity and not citizenship.”
Privacy Issues with Aadhaar

Right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights which an individual person

values the most. Enrolment under the AADHAR scheme is optional but there
are several cases where people have been disadvantaged of their benefits and
the reason was they were not enrolled under the AADHAR scheme. Therefore,
it brings us to the point that to be eligible for such benefits, individual person
has to submit their biometric and demographic data which is the violation of
their right to privacy. Data protection and data privacy are the rights for every
individual person residing in the country and every citizen must be aware of
that. There are many privacy issues regarding AADHAR some of them are
discussed below:
 Data breach: There have been several cases of data breaches of Aadhar
numbers via government websites. Recent reports suggest that there was
a case that information of Reliance Jio phone numbers which uses Aadhar
number, with the names and the addresses of users had been leaked via a
security breach and were sold to the other service providers. Another
report suggests that private information of peoples those who have
Aadhar numbers were leaked from for government websites that deal
with the social welfare schemes such as National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (NREGA) and other pensions.
 Authorization issue: A huge number of people have faced
authorization issues, like fingerprints refusing to confirm as their own.
This is probably occurred due to few reasons like server problems,
discrepancy of fingerprints in the database and incorrectly capturing of
biometric information. Subsequent failures of identity confirmation mean
that the individual will not be able to get necessary benefits from the
government.
 Flagrant misuse of identity: This kind of misuse of an individual’s
identity via Aadhar can be understand by the fact that Central Identities
Data Repository (CIDR) is centralized and provide our private data
insecure. By using identity of others, one can be able to perform
transactions including banking in favour of the individual without getting
their permission.
 No right to opt out: Once a person registers under the Aadhar scheme,
his/her private information remains in the database for lifetime and does
not have a choice and the right to opt out even one has no desire to have
their biometric information stored.
 Seeding: It is about the linking of the Aadhar number into different
schemes. Once the Aadhar number is seeded into different databases this
 makes convergence of personal information very simple. So, if the
numbers in the bank, the ration card, the gas agency, the medical records,
the voter ID and so on, the government can have the surveillance on
citizens without the permission of them.
 Violation of rights: The critics of Aadhar has always said that the
UIDAI might share the demographic and biometric information of people
with the government agencies therefore violating people’s right to
privacy. They thought that using the biometric data, people might be
tracked, harassed, singled out and have their rights violated.

Personal Integrity
Our individual integrity is our own property, no one else can have the
right break it. But under the Aadhaar scheme this thing is threatened. This
can happen because the government has our biometric information in
their bank and can take unfair action against the citizen. And that's why it
appears to be against citizenship rights.
Under the Aadhaar project, there is a possibility of monitoring
every citizen by the government, which can alter the relations of the
citizen and the government. This action can spoil the balance of the
government and the citizens, and in this situation the government will be
a stronger side, as it has the command over our biometrics.
In this situation, any monitoring system should be created that
works in the precincts of the law which balances the relationship between
the government and the citizen.

Personal Data Economy

Aadhaar number is required to link with income tax return and PAN card,
with this, it is also necessary to link with the bank account. Over 1 crore
PAN cards were linked with Aadhaar. Now if the Aadhaar data is leaked
then this can crash our banking system because banking transactions can
be done through. It will directly affect our economy.

Safeguards Needed
Educating the people is essential to aware them about Aadhaar risks and
opportunities. Our IT law is modernizing every day and for this we have
to show trust to some agency which is keeping the Aadhaar data safe.
 This century is full of risks and if we want an environment free from
risks, then we will have to return again in the Stone Age. To say this is to say
that we will have to abandon everything that threatens us from something like
bus, car, airplane etc., which seems impossible this at the present scenario. So,
we have to bear some risk.

Different perspective about Aadhaar:

Many countries are considering national wide public identity for people. So
many of them already have implanted these schemes but Aadhaar is different
and so much controversy is associated with its. But so many people believe
that Aadhaar has so much potential that it can solve many problems of
developed country like India. India can provide a single digit unique
identification identity to every citizen for all its purpose across different sector.
No carrying of multiple identity like PAN card, Rashan Card, Passport when a
single smart card can do all work for you. According to finance minister Arun
Jaitley said “A stage may come that Aadhaar will become the sole identity of
individual in future.” So, this will make life of people easier and save money of
government. But any id or voter id can be made instead of Aadhaar, why waste
money for Aadhaar. What if authentication fails or some lost Aadhaar card,
with so much dependence on one card person can’t do anything. If Aadhaar
can really solve all above problem than why major developed countries reject
this idea of biometric authentication Because in modern word privacy is import
aspect of individual’s life and it can’t be ignored. Biometric identification is not
the only problem but seeding of Aadhaar into everything create major
problem. Due to seeding tracking of any person will be much easier. Which can
create situation for violation of individual’s privacy.
On many occasion Aadhaar has been portrayed as pro-poor
initiative that will provided unique identification to poor society. Aadhaar is
portrayed as weapon who can provide better service to poor people than
existing one. As by linking Aadhaar to bank account, many intermediates can
be remove by directly transfer funds to beneficiary (direct benefit transfer). So,
one can say it is pro-poor initiative. But in recent times Indian Government
tries to seeing Aadhaar into every public-sector services using the same pro
poor initiative. Even though it may beneficial to poor but it is forced to other
people as well. If it affects all people than idea of pro-poor initiative is wrong
but this is strong idea & this create strong social forces in network to get the
social outcome.
The other things government is trying to do is that they want the people to
believe that Aadhaar is for security of Indian citizen. Because it can minimize or
completely remove the duplicate id crisis as no two people have same finger
prints and retina. So, you can easily identify the person with single
authentication system. Duplicate id is real crisis for countries but if someone
hack all these data (In modern word it is not impossible) it can create major
problem for nation anyone get morphed the data can get an eligible id. Hacked
released data is sensitive and can make a tragedy. Government is saying it is
secured and no one can hack this but other outcome be considered to get a
perfect result about Aadhaar.
The real issue with Aadhaar is to privacy of individual, why I have to tell
government that I am going to hospital or doing a bank transaction (even
though I have paid my taxes and no criminal record). Now the people who
support Aadhaar peoples are saying that ‘Your bank account details aren’t
shared by your bank with UIDAI but work of UIDAI is to just authenticates the
identity and it doesn’t store and get any information about your transaction so
the question of profiling or centralisation of information doesn’t arise. But can
one sure that no one is profiling us. No one is control government and
government surveillance are made so much easier with Aadhar seeding and
this is not the rare case. In America ‘Edward Snowden’ already shows the
world that this is possible. So, government has to made sure surveillance can
not be done so that people feel safe.
General Response of People about Aadhaar
The most important thing we heard is Aadhaar doesn’t interference with
privacy as Aadhaar is the tool just for authentication, it doesn’t store data. It
does not track person & it’s impossible to make person’s profile. As already
described on one is there to check this. To associate any entry with a real
person cannot be construed as violation of privacy. For example, if you go to
bank they will ask your information, no one can claim this as violation of
privacy because banks also must ensure real identity of person. In debate on
Aadhaar Tathagat Satpathy (MLA, India) said “there are fears that a
government may use the provisions of the bill for ‘mass surveillance’ and
‘ethnic cleansing’. He also claimed that “United Nations had recently misused
biometric data of refugees coming from Iraq and Syria to help certain countries
keep a tab on them”. It is also possible in India it can be used to create
discrimination between people in India.
‘National wide implantation is not possible and has a failure rete’ is now not a
question anymore. Almost in every part of India people are using Aadhaar, but
there is still doubt about accuracy and success rate but failure rate is very less
so this is used to change people mind about Aadhaar.
‘Indian do not care about privacy’ this is the basic argument we
generally listen from people and some govt officials. For countries like India
privacy is not that important as we seen people talking in daily life, we share
information on social media sites (even in villages so many people don’t even
know that Facebook, Twitter have a privacy control setting), with banks etc.
and most of the people never complain about it. They don’t even ask the
authorities ‘why are you need my information’ So we care less about privacy or
our government believe it. Privacy is fundamental right in Indian constitution
and what about people who care about privacy, what about their fundamental
right. This idea of India does not care about privacy is weak. To justify Aadhar
government using as tool ignore import aspect of people’s life (privacy)
The third opinion we generally listen is “we are already under
surveillance”. Social media sites are making profile of yours and they are doing
from many years so why is so much fuss about Aadhaar, why hypocrisy with
Aadhaar. But you can control private companies and other entities but who
will control or stop government. So Aadhar is different and it’s is forced and no
social sites will not know about my bank statement if I haven’t shared my
detail with it but government will know I like it or not.
‘Aadhaar is for security of Indian citizen’ this is the described by
Indian government attorney in Supreme court of India. First preference of
Indian should be security not privacy. This is a legitimate point, a powerful idea
behind Aadhaar. In recent years terror attack, gun fighting, corruption
activities, murders and other criminal activities is rising. If surveillance and
Aadhaar linking can stop this than why not first make people safe than we can
think about other things. But one good point cannot not hide other important
issue. Security and privacy are different and independent issue of anybody’s
lives for one, other should not be affected by other. So, for security, privacy
can not be compromised.
 ‘The law will take care of privacy’ is the other description in favour
of Aadhaar. Government can make strict law if someone hack and or share
data without individual’s consult, will be strictly punished. Only strict law can
assure your integrity. Law can provide give assurance but Aadhaar project is
very big data base. If it leaked its consequence will be much wider that no law
will be enough for compensate of the damages. this is just a social phrase to
cover the privacy issue it has.

Conclusion:
Aadhaar is prime example of Social determination. Ideas formed in society is
making an effect on Aadhaar. Society and social views is interfering with the
technological advancement. Society is playing an important role & eventually
may decide the future of technology that it will survive or not so. Some may
say if Aadhaar project implanted it is a stage toward modernisation of society
because of its use of new and updated technology in our daily life but in
reality, modernisation in not about use of new technology it is about modern
thinking, modern ideas like: freedom, privacy etc. Even with new and updated
technology, we are not modernising.
Although technology is made its way in people’s life because of its
productivity, usefulness and new and modern ideas. Technology will not only
survive if doesn’t hurt the sociological sentiments. Aadhaar can be very useful
in daily life due to its multiple uses in different sectors. It may create a path for
future technology if it got cleared from supreme court of India. So only
productivity is not enough for any technology for society, sentimental value of
technology in society also determine the technological advancement.
Outcome of technology is different on different society; more educated
people care about their privacy but less educated/uneducated people care
less. Technology affecting people two ways for one it is harmful for their
privacy while for other it is their tool to ease business/work.