UID Mandatory, Online Authentication – Updated News
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We’ve covered a lot of UID-related news in the past. Check them out here. We’ve been touting UID as the next big thing, why? Because personally I feel that it’ll help a lot with the streamlining of the system that is currently cluttered up with bureaucracy. In the last few weeks, there’s been quite a lot of buzz about the UID, with Nilekani releasing more and more titbits of information at a time.
We’ll go steps at a time. First, news on the UID Features. Then on UID Implementation and then on UID ramifications.
Firstly, the UID will contain fingerprint and iris information. Though initially, it’s meant for the beneficiaries of NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), the 2011 census will see everyone being asked to submit iris and fingerprint scans. A few things were clarified.
- The UID, as repeatedly said is NOT a card. Merely a number.
- It is meant for identification alone, and does not guarantee benefits such as citizenship.
“We have an agreement with the Home Ministry that when they do the enumeration as part of the National Population Register, they do intend to capture the biometrics using the standards that we will publish,” he said. “We certainly think we will take all the 10 finger prints. We will take a picture. The question we don’t know whether at this scale of operation, 10 fingerprints will be adequate… we have not closed the option of an iris scan,” he said when asked if his office was also looking at the possibility of taking iris scan rather than finger prints.
Meanwhile, companies such as Intel have pitched in their expertise. A lot of giants like Microsoft and Intel are vying for the option to be a part of this. The contract alone will be worth millions, and the publicity that comes along phenomenal. Also, the complexity in implementation considered, a successful project will be extremely commendable on all fronts.
Let’s look at the numbers. The UID is estimated to offer a Rs 15,000-20,000 crore opportunity to computing, database, smartcard and storage vendors, besides systems integrators. For every rupee of IT spend on the UID project, industry experts estimate, around 60 per cent of the spending will go to hardware vendors. For example, if iris scans and fingerprints are essential, it would entail the use of fingerprint readers. Now, we wrote about how the mobile would be used. So mobile devices will have to be fingerprint-scan enabled. The data needs to be stored and retrieved. Each individual donates at least 10 MB of data. Multiply that with a population of one billion people. Do the math on the requirements of storage, processing power, algorithm design.
A very recent news article also announced that the UID project will carry on Online Authentication. Quoted from an interview published in the Hindu.
“A project of this scale has not been done before . The largest biometric data base is 120 million in the US. We are doing 10X, that is 1.2 billion. That itself is unprecedented. We are doing online authentication. Nobody is doing it online . We are doing cell phone authentication . Nobody has done that either. It’s doable as technology is there, but nobody has put it all together. It’s a huge task and de-duplication is a big challenge. Let us not underestimate the complexity of this technology, which is challenge number one. There’s a challenge of enrollment as well — how do you give 1.2 billion people a number? For that we need partners. Partners will be state governments, LIC, SBI and so on.”
So, if he has now clarified the enormity of the task at hand, let’s look at how it will affect your lives. The UID could become mandatory. The subtlety of that statement needs to be lauded. It will not be mandatory, but it might just be prerequisite for a lot of services, which will eventually make it mandatory.
“When you to get a passport, they will say where is your UID number, when you go to get a driving license, they will say where is your UID number, when you go to tax, they will say where is your UID number, you go to open a bank account, they will say where is your UID number. Sooner or later you will have to get your UID number,” Nilekani told PTI in an interview.
Got the point? This should help eliminate tax evasion, bank fraud, black money, forgery on a vast scale.
So now, one number might prove to be a lot of use, and a lot of trouble if not utilised properly. An article was also published in the news with Nilekani calling for a clean policy on privacy. Think of the ramifications. Your history, identity, passport, bank account and mobile phone tied to a number. How much of this data will be public? How much private? If online authentication is involved, what about security precautions?
Nilekani has clarified that the number will be used for authentication alone, and will not be used for divulging private information. He also added that a new policy on privacy must evolve, especially with growing dependence on technology. A lot of websites list personal details like addresses of an individual, and can be accessed by anyone. Bearing this in mind he said “A policy to strike a balance between the RTI, which requires disclosure of information in public interest, and the privacy of an individual can be evolved” he said.
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What you’re missing out on is the fact that the UID can become a “license to live”. Making it mandatory is an invasion of privacy and makes a number more important than the person.
What next? UID necessary for a farmer to get emergency treatment for a broken leg? Mandatory for children going to school? Mandatory to enter a theater? The world over such a card hasn’t worked due to privacy concerns, and you just pretend that they don’t exist?
I really doubt the Government would get that stringent. The UID Implementation could (COMPLETE) could take well up to 10-15 years. Even if it did evolve into some sort of social security offshoot, where it was essential, the benefits could offset the negatives.
Making it mandatory is merely like making all citizens register, so you know who’s a citizen and who’s not, so you have records. The potential for denial of freedom might not arise.
The aim is not to keep tabs on all of us, but to ensure that only the right people are getting rights to benefits from the government.
Farmer gets free medical care from the government. Questions: Is he who he really says he is? 2) Can he DEFINITELY not afford treatment?
In the USA itself, medical care is a scam. The idea is brilliant, the implementation might go awry. But don’t play the executive for the legislature eh?
In my opinion, the danger is that the UID will soon be affected by feature bloat. Once the government perceives the power of a digitized centralized system, new ways will be invented to extend that power.
The same happened in Britain after WWII where the police continued to stop citizens and ask for their ID card. Meaning that people could not walk around freely in their own country without being attached to a card. It’s offensive.
I feel that no benefits can outweigh those of privacy and freedom to move around without feeling that you can be asked for a number. After all, we didn’t fight for freedom so that our own countrymen can oppress us!
Having all citizens merely register is different from having everyone’s details in a database with other sensitive information attached. It’s a question of scale. The biometric measures such as Iris scans and fingerprinting only increases the sense of interference.
Another drawback is the atmosphere of distrust that will prevail. The number becomes more important than the person. A good example is your suspicion of the farmer with the broken leg. Suspicion should not be carried so far as to deprive everyone of the benefit of the doubt in an emergency. Once again, the number becomes more important than the person. Such a thing should never happen, and with a centralized UID, it will.