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Creepy Biometric IDs to Be Forced Onto India's 1.2 Billion Inhabitants
Fears about loss of privacy and government abuse abound as India gears up to biometrically identify and number its 1.2 billion inhabitants.
September 6, 2010 |
An Indian man walk past a census board with the day's estimate of the Indian population outside the International Institute for Population Science (IIPS) in Mumbai in July, 2009. India started counting its teeming billion-plus population on Thursday for a new census that will gather biometric data for the first time from across the vast and chaotic nation.
Photo Credit: AFP/File - Pal Pillai
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Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants.
In September, officials from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), armed with fingerprinting machines, iris scanners and cameras hooked to laptops, will fan out across the towns and villages of southern Andhra Pradesh state in the first phase of the project whose aim is to give every Indian a lifelong Unique ID (UID) number.
"The UID is soft infrastructure, much like mobile telephony, important to connect individuals to the broader economy," explains Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the UIDAI and listed in 2009 by Time magazine as among the world's 100 most influential people.
Nilekani is a co-founder of the influential National Association of Software and Services Companies and, before this assignment, chief of Infosys Technologies, flagship of India's information technology (IT) sector.
According to Nilekani, the UID will most benefit India's poor who, because they lack identity documentation, are ignored by service providers.
"The UID number, with its 'anytime, anywhere' biometric authentication, addresses the problem of trust," argues Nilekani.
But a group of prominent civil society organizations are running a Campaign For No-UID, explaining that it is a "deeply undemocratic and expensive exercise" that is "fraught with unforeseen consequences."
Participants in the campaign include well-known human rights organizations such as the Alternative Law Forum, Citizen Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties, Indian Social Action Forum, and the Center for Internet and Society.
A meeting was organized by the campaigners in New Delhi on Aug. 25 where speakers ridiculed the idea of a 12-digit number, and said it is unlikely to rectify, for example, the massive corruption in the public distribution system that is supposed to provide food to poor families.
J.T. D'Souza, an IT expert, asserted at the meeting that the use of biometrics on such a massive scale has never been attempted before and is bound to be riddled with costly glitches.
Other speakers raised issues of security and the possibility of hackers getting at databases and passing on information to commercial outfits, intelligence agencies or even criminal gangs.
In talks and television interviews, Nilekani has maintained that the benefits of the UID project far outweigh its risks. "It's worth taking on the project and trying to mitigate the risks so that we get the outcomes we want," he told the CNN-IBN television channel in an interview.
But the possibility of religious profiling by state governments or misuse by caste lobbies is real. This is because the central government has decided to include caste as a category in the UID questionnaire to be filled out by applicants.
Because identity is already a potent issue and the trigger for frequent identity-related conflict – such as the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat that left 2,000 people dead – any exercise that enhances identification is fraught.
http://www.alternet.org/world/14809...e_forced_onto_india's_1.2_billion_inhabitants
Creepy Biometric IDs to Be Forced Onto India's 1.2 Billion Inhabitants
Fears about loss of privacy and government abuse abound as India gears up to biometrically identify and number its 1.2 billion inhabitants.
September 6, 2010 |
Photo Credit: AFP/File - Pal Pillai
LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:
Sign up to stay up to date on the latest World headlines via email.
http://www.change.org/petitions
Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants.
In September, officials from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), armed with fingerprinting machines, iris scanners and cameras hooked to laptops, will fan out across the towns and villages of southern Andhra Pradesh state in the first phase of the project whose aim is to give every Indian a lifelong Unique ID (UID) number.
"The UID is soft infrastructure, much like mobile telephony, important to connect individuals to the broader economy," explains Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the UIDAI and listed in 2009 by Time magazine as among the world's 100 most influential people.
Nilekani is a co-founder of the influential National Association of Software and Services Companies and, before this assignment, chief of Infosys Technologies, flagship of India's information technology (IT) sector.
According to Nilekani, the UID will most benefit India's poor who, because they lack identity documentation, are ignored by service providers.
"The UID number, with its 'anytime, anywhere' biometric authentication, addresses the problem of trust," argues Nilekani.
But a group of prominent civil society organizations are running a Campaign For No-UID, explaining that it is a "deeply undemocratic and expensive exercise" that is "fraught with unforeseen consequences."
Participants in the campaign include well-known human rights organizations such as the Alternative Law Forum, Citizen Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties, Indian Social Action Forum, and the Center for Internet and Society.
A meeting was organized by the campaigners in New Delhi on Aug. 25 where speakers ridiculed the idea of a 12-digit number, and said it is unlikely to rectify, for example, the massive corruption in the public distribution system that is supposed to provide food to poor families.
J.T. D'Souza, an IT expert, asserted at the meeting that the use of biometrics on such a massive scale has never been attempted before and is bound to be riddled with costly glitches.
Other speakers raised issues of security and the possibility of hackers getting at databases and passing on information to commercial outfits, intelligence agencies or even criminal gangs.
In talks and television interviews, Nilekani has maintained that the benefits of the UID project far outweigh its risks. "It's worth taking on the project and trying to mitigate the risks so that we get the outcomes we want," he told the CNN-IBN television channel in an interview.
But the possibility of religious profiling by state governments or misuse by caste lobbies is real. This is because the central government has decided to include caste as a category in the UID questionnaire to be filled out by applicants.
Because identity is already a potent issue and the trigger for frequent identity-related conflict – such as the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat that left 2,000 people dead – any exercise that enhances identification is fraught.
http://www.alternet.org/world/14809...e_forced_onto_india's_1.2_billion_inhabitants