IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 14

will have to deploy fingerprint and
iris scanners, which will be used to
"authenticate," that is, verify if the
person is who they say they are.
This is a business model, where the
UIDAI proposes to make its profits
on authentication - the Strategy

The UIDAI has demanded that
everyone, from the newborn
to the oldest resident, be
registered on its database.

Overview document calculates that
once the project reaches a "steady"
state, it should be able to make Rs
288.15 crore [6].
Fourth, the UID is supposed to
be voluntary, but that was a deliberate untruth put out as part of the
socialization exercise for the project, and because the UIDAI has no
power to force anyone to enroll.
After all, their legal status has
always been highly suspect. In the
first two years of enrollment, it was
evident that there was little enthusiasm to get on to the database. It
has never been clear what the point
of the UID number was. The fact
remains, it is still not clear. At the
World Bank talk in April 2013, Mr.
Nilekani said in answer to a question: "Obviously people don't know
what benefits will come from this -
even I don't know what benefits will
come from this... But broadly, they
know that this is some kind of a
gateway to the future. There will be
benefits. What these benefits are,
they don't know" [5].
Declaring that the UID was mandatory changed things for people.
How the idea of making the UID

False Claims

mandatory was sold to various
government agencies is not widely
known. We do know that the UIDAI
had banked on the UID being
made mandatory by different agencies even when it put together its
Strategy Overview [13]. The strategy was for the UIDAI to
continue pretending that it
was voluntary.
Five, the words "universal" and "ubiquitous"
are used to describe the
ambitions of the project.
By getting ever yone on
the database, there is to
be "universal" coverage.
And by getting every possible agency to subscribe
to the UID as a KYC, it is
to be "ubiquitous." Mr. Nilekani, of course, explains that the
UID is an "identity platform." It is
"open architecture" on which many
"apps" may be built. Unlike the driving licence, ration card, or voter ID,
the UID has no direct purpose of its
own. It is just an "ID verification system" and all manner of "apps" can
be built on it. Direct Benefit Transfer
is one such "app." And in explanation of what it will do, Mr. Nilekani
states: "You can use the ID and create a credit history... or you could
build an electronic health system."
Since it is on a cloud, your health
record will be portable and "you can
take it with you wherever you go."
Of course, this also "gives you complete traceability," of persons and
their transactions. "Obviously," he
admits, "it doesn't solve the problem of eligibility. You have to build
some other systems for that" [4].
The casual disregard of the law,
the authoritarian demands to hand
over personal and intimate information, creating databases that put
people at risk, and passing off halftruths and outright lies as facts are
only among some of the very disturbing features of the UID.
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

The UID, it is claimed, will be an
identity scheme that will remove
the barriers that prevent the poor
from accessing benefits and subsidies. Unfortunately for the UIDAI,
this claim is already being severely
eroded. What was projected as a
project of inclusion is already turning into a threat of exclusion. The
poor have been warned that if they
do not enroll for a UID, if they do not
have bank accounts, if those bank
accounts are not embedded with the
UID number, then they will become
ineligible for the subsidies that they
receive. That is the first obstacle that
has been set up by the project.
Then, a person needs to produce
a pre-existing document to be able
to enroll; a voter ID, a PAN card, a
driving licence, or one of the many
cards that are listed. Those who do
not have a document to establish
their identity or those whose documents are not accepted by the enrolment agency - and this is invariably
the poor and the less privileged -
will need an "introducer" to help
them get enrolled. The introducer,
as was explained by the Demographic Data Standards Committee that
reported to the UIDAI in December
2009, would be akin to a bank introducer - with one significant difference: while a bank introducer would
be expected to know the person he
or she is introducing, it is different
process with UID enrollment [7].
The state government or other
agency acting as Registrar would
have to appoint an "approved
introducer" to do the task. That
is, introducers must be known to
the Registrar, but do not need to
know the persons they are introducing! The accuracy of the data
is thus suspect. No wonder, then,
that in January 2012 the Home
Ministry protested that they could
not accept UID data because it was
insecure and unreliable [8].
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MARCH 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015