An open letter addressed to the Citizens of India
Dear Fellow Citizens,
Subject- Scrap Unique Identification Number (UID)/ Aadhar project involving biometric data collection linked to National Population Register (NPR)
Dear fellow citizens,
This is with reference to a privacy invasion project which is relevant to India and all the democratic countries of the world. The very first Bill that is to be presented by the new coalition government of UK in the British Parliament is to repeal its Identity Cards Act 2006 even as Government of India has chosen to give approval to Unique Identification Number (UID) project that threatens citizens’ privacy. Clearly, what is poisonous for civil liberties in UK cannot become non-poisonous in India.
If one takes cognizance of the claim that “UID system is a civilian application of biometrics”1 and compares it with current practices, one finds that such a claim is quite misplaced. In the report there is reference to a Study commissioned by the US Department of Homeland Security to International Biometrics Group.2 Will someone explain how reference to such a study constitutes civilian application?
In our country, it is rarely noticed as to when the concept of massively organized information has quietly emerged to become a means of social control, a weapon of war, and a roadmap for the destruction of ethnic groups.
Unique Identification Number (UID)/‘Aadhar’ project that emerged from the constitution of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in January, 2009 reminds one of what happened from the period preceding Adolf Hitler’s arrival to January, 1933 when he occupied power, to Second World War and since then. The way International Business Machines (IBM), the world’s largest technology company and the second most valuable global brand colluded with the Nazis to identify Jews for targeted for asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and ultimately extermination to help Hitler with its punch card and card sorting system–a precursor to the computer made the automation of human destruction possible is matter of historical fact.3
Unmindful of the lessons from Germany, advancing the argument of targeting, it has been claimed on the floor of the parliament by the Indian Finance Minister while presenting the 2010-11 Union Budget that UID project ‘would provide an effective platform for financial inclusion and targeted subsidy payments,’4 the same targeting measures can be used with malafide motives against citizens of certain religion, caste and ethnicity or region or towards a section of society due to economic resentment. Curiously, the Finance Minister and the head of Unique Identification Number (UID)/ Aadhar project refer to financial inclusion and not economic inclusion of the poor. Exclusion of certain sections of society for political reasons had led to the targeted massacre of 1947, 1984 and 2002.
Unique Identification Number (UID)/ ‘Aadhar’ project is going to do almost exactly the same thing which the predecessors of Hitler did else how is it that Germany always had the lists of Jewish names. The Nazis got these lists with the help of IBM which was in Census business that included racial census that entailed not only count the Jews but also identifying them. In Washington at the United States Holocaust Museum, there is an exhibit of an IBM Hollerith D-11 card sorting machine that was responsible for organizing the census of 1933 that first identified the Jews. Government of India cannot guarantee that in future when the Nazis or some such sort come to power in India they would not have access to Unique Identification Number (UID) for vindictive measures against certain sections of the citizenry.
Unique Identification Number and National Population Register is all set to do what International Business Machines (IBM) did in Germany, Romania through solutions ranging from the census to providing list of names of Jews to Nazis. The Unique Identification Number and National Populations Register have nothing to do with citizenship.
In such a backdrop, as concerned citizens we welcome the progressive step by the new coalition government in UK to scrap its controversial national identity card (ID) scheme in order to safeguard citizens’ privacy and act against intrusions. The scrapping of the UK’s ID project is planned to be done in the next 3-4 months. Besides repealing Identity Cards Act 2006 and outlawing the finger-printing of children at school, UK government would stop its National Identity Register and the next generation of biometric passports, the Contact Point database and end storage of internet and email records sans valid reasons.
But unlike UK, Government of India through a Press Information Bureau release dated 18 May, 2010 has stated that “The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India related issues (CC-UIDAI) today approved in principle the adoption of the approach outlined by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for collection of demographic and biometric attributes of residents (face, all ten fingerprints and iris) for the UID project. It was also decided to include data of the iris for children in the age group of 5 to 15 years. The same standards and processes would be adhered to by the Registrar General of India for the National Population Register (NPR) exercise and all other Registrars in the UID system.” In India too, there is a robust case against rejecting what has been rejected in the UK. Unique Identification Number (UID)/ Aadhar project is a blatant case of infringement of civil liberties.
As is the case with Unique Identification Number (UID)/ Aadhar project, in UK too the scheme has been vacillating from one claimed purpose to another.
The project is being bulldozed in the name of poor by saying, “Identity becomes a bottleneck if one wants to have a ration card, driving licence, passport, bank account or a mobile connection. It will enable poor residents to access multiple resources including education, health and financial services.” Following the footprints of UK’s discredited project, it is being said that “The identity number will help get a child admission in school.” Perhaps fearing abandonment of the project, in the aftermath of UK government’s decision, it is being now said that the Unique Identification Number is optional not mandatory.5
How is it that two democracies deal with the issue of ungovernable breaches of privacy differently? While UK government is pro-active in protecting privacy of its citizens, Government of India is ridiculing the very idea of privacy and civil liberties.
It is highly disturbing that at almost the same time India’s minority coalition government plans to do just the contrary with astounding disregard to citizens’ privacy by stamping them with an UID number based on their biometric data. Such “surveillance” effort through world’s largest citizen identity project for “Creating a Unique Identity Number for Every Resident in India” in history undermines our democracy beyond repair.
Related to the UID number project is the project of National Population Register (NPR). This is for the first time that NPR is being prepared. The database will be built by the Registrar General, India. It is noteworthy that census and NPR are different. Census is the biggest source of data on demography, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, economic activity, urbanization, fertility, mortality, language, religion and migration. It serves as primary data for planning and the implementation of policies of the Central and State Governments.
National Population Register (NPR) involves the creation of a comprehensive identity database for the country. NPR will include the items of information such as the name of the person, father’s name, mother’s name, spouse’s name, sex, date of birth, place of birth, current marital status, education, nationality as declared, occupation, present address of usual resident and permanent residential address. The database will also contain photograph and finger biometry of persons above the age of 15 years.
After the National Population Register (NPR) database is finalized, the next task would be assigning every individual a Unique Identification Number (UID). This UID number will be added to the NPR database. It is proposed to issue identity card, which will be a smart card with UID number printed on it and include basic details like name, mother’s/father’s name, sex, date and place of birth, photograph. Complete details will be stored in the chip.
Like in the UK, in India too, there is a need for a similar measure to stop the efforts underway through the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to issue a unique identification number to every resident in the country.5 Issuing unique identity numbers to the 1.2 billion residents in India based on biometric data is fraught with hitherto unimaginable dangers of human rights violations. It has emerged that it all started rolling in the aftermath of a meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers on November 4, 2008 and a meeting of the Prime Minister’s Council of the UID Authority on August 12, 2009, wherein it was decided that there was a “need for a legislative framework” akin to UK’s Identity Cards Act 2006 which is now being scrapped.
The 13th Finance Commission has made a provision for an incentive of Rs 100 per person (Rs 400-500 per family) to bribe citizens below the poverty line to register for the UID and has recommended a grant of Rs 2,989.10 crore to be given to the state governments for the same. The three states who have signed an MOU on their part have set up state level committees to work as registrars of UIDAI for collecting biometric samples like thumb impression or cornea configuration of each individual resident. The Karnataka government has set-up the Center for e-Governance and a state-level UID implementation committee under the chief secretary; Madhya Pradesh has set-up a cabinet committee on UID under the chief minister and a state UID implementation committee under the chief secretary. The Andhra government too has set-up a state level empowered committee under the chief minister and state UID implementation committee under the chief secretary. Has there been any debate so far in the legislatures about the ramifications of a project which is all set to be scrapped in UK?
As per Authority’s Office Memorandum5 signed by Director General, UIDAI dated September 29, 2009, “The main objective is to improve benefits service delivery, especially to the poor and the marginalized sections of the society. To deliver its mandate, the UID Authority proposes to create a platform to first collect the identity details and then to perform authentication that can be used by several government and private service providers.”6 The reference to “private service providers” is inexplicable for the work is meant to be an exercise for public purpose and for the poor and the marginalized.
This Authority in turn set up a Biometrics Standards Committee in order “to review existing standards and modify/extend/enhance them so as to achieve the goals and purpose for de-duplications and authentication” through framing biometrics standards for fingerprints, face and iris.
The Authority defines Biometrics as “the science of establishing the identity of an individual based on the physical, chemical or behavioural attributes of the person.” Besides the photos of the face are commonly used in various types of identification cards, it is undertaking the use of fingerprints for identification and recording Iris, the annular region of the eye, bounded by the pupil and sclera on either side which is considered the most accurate biometric.6
The committee reveals that “The biometrics will be captured for authentication by government departments and commercial organizations at the time of service delivery.”7 The commercial organization mentioned herein is not defined.
The Biometrics Standards Committee refers to previous experiences of the US and Europe with biometrics. A technical sub-group was also formed that collected over 250,000 fingerprint images from 25,000 persons were sourced from districts of Delhi, UP, Bihar and Orissa for analyzing Indian fingerprints. It may do the same for Iris and face as well to form a database size of 1.2 billion. It has been recommended that “Biometrics data are national assets and must be preserved in their original quality.”8 The Committee refers to citizens database as national asset. Are’t citizens assets in themselves whose civil liberties gives legitimacy to the every existence of nation-state.
Both Unique Identification Number and National Population Register through convergence represent a case of the state, and the ‘market’ tracking citizens for one reason or the other. It is neither benign in its design nor in its execution. The working paper of the UIDAI reveals that the “UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements”.
In view of the above mentioned facts, we submit that the collection of such data is a classic case of gross violation of fundamental human rights. Government of India should take prompt lessons from the UK government’s decision to scrap its National ID project and abandon Unique Identification Number (UID)/ Aadhar project.
Yours faithfully
Gopal Krishna
Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties
E-mail: krishna2777@gmail.com
References & Notes:
[1] Biometrics Design Standards For UID Applications, Planning Commission, prepared by: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Committee on Biometrics, p. 9, Version 1.0, December 2009
[2] Study is titled “Independent Testing of Iris Recognition Technology, Final Report, May 2005” referred in the report of the Biometrics Design Standards For UID Applications, Planning Commission, prepared by: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Committee on Biometrics, p. 56, Version 1.0, December 2009
[3] Edwin, Black IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation, 2001, Crown Publishing and others worldwide, US
[4] Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in his budget speech allocated a budget of Rs. 1900 crore for financial year 2010-11
[5] In an Interview to Shelley Singh & Pramugdha Mamgain, ‘Identity will help the poor participate in economic growth’: Nandan Nilekani, 26 May 2010, The Economic Times
[6] Balchand K, AADHAR not mandatory, says Nilekani, May 12, 2010, The Hindu
[7] Biometrics Design Standards For UID Applications, Planning Commission, prepared by: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Committee on Biometrics, p. 25, Version 1.0, December 2009
[8] Biometrics Design Standards For UID Applications, Planning Commission, prepared by: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Committee on Biometrics, p. 8, Version 1.0, December 2009
[9] Biometrics Design Standards For UID Applications, Planning Commission, prepared by: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Committee on Biometrics, p. 5, Version 1.0, December 2009
[i] Notes
[i] Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was constituted by the Government of India on 28th January, 2009 as an attached office of the Planning Commission. Prime Minister’s Council on UID Authority was constituted on 30th July, 2009 and its first meeting was held on 12th August, 2009. Subsequently, the Government constituted a Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India related issues (CC-UIDAI) in October 2009 to look into all issues relating to UIDAI including its organisation, plans, policies, programmes, schemes, funding and methodology to be adopted for achieving the objectives of the Authority. On June 25th 2009, the Union Cabinet created and approved the position of the Chairperson of the UIDAI, and appointed Nandan Nilekani as the first Chairperson in the rank and status of a Cabinet Minister. R S Sharma has been appointed the Director General. Address by the President of India, to Parliament dated 22nd February 2010 notes, “The Unique Identification Authority of India has been established with a mandate to issue unique identity numbers based on biometrics to all residents of India. This mammoth and unprecedented exercise will serve as a great enabler to improve targeting and delivery of major government welfare programmes and public services, especially to those who are poor and marginalized. The first set of unique identity numbers is expected to be issued in the early part of 2011.”
[ii] Copy of the Office Memorandum of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) dated September 29, 2009 was forwarded to Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to the PM, all the Secretaries to the Government of India, all the Chief Secretaries of the States and Union Territories for information
[iii] The Authority’s Biometrics Committee informs, “Fingerprint technology constitutes approximately half of the total biometrics market”. It attempts to assure citizens by saying, “The iris sample acquisition is done without physical contact and without too much inconvenience to the person whose iris image is being acquired. Iris has no association with law enforcement and has not received negative press and may therefore be more readily accepted.”
The report of the Biometrics Committee’s states, “The performance of iris authentication can be impaired by the use of spectacles or contact lenses. Also, some people may be missing one or both eyes while others may not have the motor control necessary to reliably enroll in an iris based system. Until recently, iris code representation and matching was proprietary and patented. Iris is emerging as the third standard biometric identifier after expiration of patents and changes in vendor practices.”
*Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) was initiated in March 2004 .
Tags : Aadhar, Biometric data, Citizen, Gopal Krishna, Government of India, India, National Security, NPR, UID
http://bargad.org/2010/06/04/scrap-unique-identification-number-uid-aadhar-project-involving-biometric-data-collection-linked-to-national-population-register-npr-gopal-krishna/
