[HINDU]
The Sunday Story The Supreme Court's Interim order defining Aadhaar from subsidies has left the Centre grappling with the future of the Unique Identification programme. It must now provide a clear roadmap to citizens and address their genuine concerns.
Unique, universal, ubiquitous: three words that Mr Nandan Nilekani used to describe the ambitions of the UID project. Every person across the population of over 1.2 billion was to be uniquely identified. Every person was to be enrolled. The number was to be ‘seeded’ in every data base, and the system re-engineered, making the UID number indispensable to every individual and every system. The UID project is based on these ambitions.
Biometrics was the UIDAI’s route to uniqueness. Except that very little, or nothing, was known about biometrics when the project started. How much did the UIDAI know about the efficacy of biometrics when it made its decision to capture fingerprints and iris scans, and to use biometrics to ‘de-duplicate’ the whole population? In a ‘notice’ inviting a biometrics consultant, the UIDAI was saying, in January-February 2010: “there is a lack of a sound study that documents the accuracy achievable on Indian demographics (that is, larger percentage of rural population) and in Indian environmental conditions (that is, extremely hot and humid climates and facilities without air-conditioning). In fact, we do not have any credible study assessing the achievable accuracy in any of the developing countries.... The ‘quality’ assessment of fingerprint data (in the UIDAI’s ‘preliminary assessment’) is not sufficient to fully understand the achievable de-duplication accuracy.” Yet, the decision had already been made, that the fingerprints and iris scan of the entire population be stored on the UIDAI database. Later reports on enrolment, and fingerprint and iris authentication, revealed deep flaws in the system, and escalating costs; but no one seems to have been paying attention to the emerging evidence.
No responsibility
The UID project has been weak on respect for the law. Despite the potential for surveillance, tracking, tagging, profiling and even exclusion that the project holds – say, migrant workers develop calluses in their hands that makes matching their fingerprint to that on the UID database a hard task – there has been no law protecting the rights of people, or detailing the liability of agencies that handle personal data. Through the years since the project was launched, there has only been the executive notification by which the UIDAI was set up in January 2009; which, among other things, says that the UIDAI would ‘own’ the data. It was December 2010 when, bowing to pressure from civil society activists, a law was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, which was then referred to the Standing Committee. In December 2011, the Standing Committee delivered a scathing report which asked that the project, and the law, be taken back to the drawing board; there were too many problems with both.
In response, the government did nothing; the report passed by them like an idle wind, which Shakespeare had taught them to respect not. From then, until now, the law is non-existent. This has allowed the UIDAI to expand the fields of data it collects, aggressively push for making enrolment mandatory to access any service or legal right, enter into data sharing agreements, and shrug off the idea of responsibility when there is identity fraud, or where authentication failures occur. The fait accompli is being created in a rush.
January 2013, and anyone not enrolled for a UID began to be threatened with consequences that included not receiving subsidies more recently for LPG gas, scholarships, wages, and marriage registration. From being a facility, it had become mandatory. Yet, as recently as August 2013 in Parliament, and in September, 2013 in the Supreme Court, the government was saying that the UID was voluntary – because when one went to enrol, they were giving their consent! On September 23, 2013, the Supreme Court stepped in to direct that “no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card in spite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory”. That is, the UID is not to be mandatory.
The government’s response has blown away the fig leaf of ‘consent’ and voluntariness. On October 4, 2013, the government was back in court asking that it be heard urgently on making the UID mandatory. The implication: that the government is asking that its authority to coerce enrolment on pain of exclusion be recognised. Given that even such acts as registering a will, or a lease deed, or drawing a salary have been made dependent on being enrolled in states such as Delhi and Maharashtra, this could spell bullying by the state, as detractors of the project warn. Even if it were to be made mandatory just for, say, LPG, that would help achieve the UIDAI’s proximate purpose of databasing everybody. Once universality is achieved, ubiquity could follow with greater ease. These are two admitted ambitions of the project. In the meantime, the project is experimenting with biometrics and uniqueness, on the entire population.
And this is where the concerns about the project are currently poised.
NPR rolls on, regardless
The Sunday Story The Supreme Court’s latest order on Aadhaar card seems to have little bearing on the ongoing enrolment in the National Population Register (NPR). The reason is simple: it has no link with entitlements.
The Supreme Court’s latest order on Aadhaar card seems to have little bearing on the ongoing enrolment in the National Population Register (NPR). The reason is simple: it has no link with entitlements.
Also, it is business as-usual continues because it is mandatory for every “usual resident,” more so for every citizen, to complete registration, as per the Citizenship Act and Rules. (Anyone who has resided in an area for six months or who intends to reside in the area for six months or more is a “usual resident,” as per the official definition).
Besides, the present controversy is not over the legality of the NPR exercise, which, a senior official points out, is on solid footing and carried out as per law. The official also adds that through the NPR process, one can get an Aadhaar number.
Though the process covers the entire country, it is more intensive in 14 States and two Union Territories, which are called ‘NPR States,’ which means that people in these States and Union Territories can get Aadhaar numbers only through the NPR. For 14 other States, four Union Territories and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, one gets an Aadhaar number through the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Though Andhra Pradesh strictly comes under the second category of States, some districts have been assigned to the Census authorities for enabling people to get Aadhaar numbers.
The census official says there is a strict procedure in place to ensure that “unwanted” persons are not included. When house-listing and housing census, forming part of the first phase of Census 2011, were carried out in April-September 2010, enumerators, who were government servants, collected data from families concerned and took their signatures. The idea is to enable the authorities to prosecute those who furnished false information.
As the second step in the NPR operations, what is taking place now in several parts of the country is capture of biometric details of every resident such as iris scans and 10 fingerprints, besides photograph. These details have to be collected in the presence of government staff. Once the enrolment drive is over, lists of residents will be displayed in the respective areas for claims and objections. They will also be scrutinised by local officials, in addition to placing them in meetings of ‘gram sabhas’ and ward committees. All these stages are aimed at ensuring authenticity, the official explains.
Procedural flaw
In rural areas, enrolment is being done village by village and taluk by taluk, while in urban areas, wards are covered in phases. As per the original plan, the distribution of ‘know your resident +’ forms should precede capture of biometric details. There is nothing to show that this has indeed been carried out in many places as per procedure.
But, the official says that keeping in mind the increasing public pressure on his department to complete the coverage quickly, special counters have been opened.
Asked about the deadline for completing the exercise, the official merely said his department keeps setting suitable deadlines. But he stresses that the entire operations have to be carried out with the cooperation of officials of the State governments. “There are difficult States and border States,” he points out.
Also, there are some legitimate issues relating to execution. In Tamil Nadu, the authorities find it difficult to get enough qualified data-entry operators in cities such as Chennai and Coimbatore as they are deterred by the high cost of living. In West Bengal, where the enrolment had to be suspended for three months owing to panchayat elections, there are instances of discrepancies in postal identification number (PIN) codes, the resolution of which is a pre-requisite before the exercise can begin. Efforts are on to sort these out, to complete enrolment expeditiously.
