Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been creating partnerships with existing organizations to speed up the process of enrolling people. As the issuance of Unique Identification numbers(Aadhar numbers) gathers momentum, questions about the scheme's effect on personal privacy and data security have not gone away:
You cannot travel in western europe and the UK for a few seconds without being videotaped by thousands of cameras that are located in every corner. This again is a serious threat to an individual's privacy.
Fears of misuse of personal data and images are legitimate.But the prevalence of abuse has not been so egregious and unchecked that the very existence of such systems in these countries could be questioned. A striking difference between these two examples and that of Aadhar is that the western world has a credible rule of law. Sadly, you cannot always say that about India.
Measures should have been announced and put in place to address this problem prior to issuing Aadhar numbers in a large scale. There has not been much evidence of that.
Lately, with development of infrastructure we have seen an unfortunate tendency to do things in the reverse order. With regard to privacy and data security concerns, UIDAI may be following the path of that lousy tradition.
Early last month the Cabinet Committee on Security in a seemingly unrelated move gave partial approval for a Home ministry project, National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid). The development alarmed the privacy advocates to again raise a cry over Aadhaar. Among other things, Natgrid, being run by an ex-army man, Capt Raghu Raman, reportedly seeks to integrate 21 databases - railways, airlines, stock exchanges, income tax, bank account details, credit card transactions, visa and immigration records, telecom service providers and chemical vendors.Fears of big brother taking over people's lives may be overblown. However, concerns around the integrity of the system are warranted. Although biometric data is not part of the system, United states of America has a version of Aadhar, the social security number(SSN). The SSN of a person can be stolen and misused.
You cannot travel in western europe and the UK for a few seconds without being videotaped by thousands of cameras that are located in every corner. This again is a serious threat to an individual's privacy.
Fears of misuse of personal data and images are legitimate.But the prevalence of abuse has not been so egregious and unchecked that the very existence of such systems in these countries could be questioned. A striking difference between these two examples and that of Aadhar is that the western world has a credible rule of law. Sadly, you cannot always say that about India.
Measures should have been announced and put in place to address this problem prior to issuing Aadhar numbers in a large scale. There has not been much evidence of that.
Lately, with development of infrastructure we have seen an unfortunate tendency to do things in the reverse order. With regard to privacy and data security concerns, UIDAI may be following the path of that lousy tradition.
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