Giving Aadhaar the finger

While it may not be a wide uprising, sections of middle-class India have woken up to the flip side of Aadhaar in recent months, thanks to the efforts of a determined bunch of people who’ve been up in arms against government notifications making the unique identification number mandatory to access bank accounts, pay taxes, use mobile phones and loads of other services. So who is this motley crew? Sunday Times surveys the main camp of Aadhaar opposition
SOCIAL ACTIVISTS
Aadhaar’s dangers were flagged as early as 2010 by legal researcher Usha Ramanathan, activists like Bezwada Wilson and Aruna Roy, and economists like Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera, who petitioned the courts about food and welfare benefits being denied to those in need. In 2016-2017, the government made Aadhaar mandatory to access PDS, midday meals, maternity benefits, and supplementary nutrition for young children. Living and working among rural communities in Jharkhand gave Dreze an insight into how Aadhaar, which began as a voluntary facility, had become a “coercive and invasive project.’’ Dreze says: “I had early opportunities to witness the hassles that Aadhaar authentication often creates for poor people. So I started questioning the project, at least in its current form.” Anjali Bhardwaj, an activist with NCPRI and Rozi Roti Abhiyan working in Delhi, found that as early as 2013, the Sheila Dikshit government had made Aadhaar mandatory for marriage certificates, land ownership and other documents. “At that time the scheme was sold on the pretext that if you have no other form of identification, you can get Aadhaar,’’ she recalls.
Reetika Khera | Economist
Biggest problem with Aadhaar I used to say Aadhaar is a remedy in search of a disease; now, I say that the remedy is worse than the disease. It is denying people their entitlements, and exclusions are being presented as savings
What is the fix? At the very least, it must be made voluntary. Those coerced into it must be allowed to opt out
The LEGAL EAGLES
The first challenge to Aadhaar came in 2012, when former judge Justice K Puttaswamy filed a writ petition arguing that it violated the right to privacy and had no legislative backing. 2013 was a year of heavy challenges, with eight petitions being filed. Four more were subsequently filed in 2014 and five in 2015.
Another 12 challenges have cropped up since the government passed the Aadhaar Act in 2016. Now there are 26 petitions before the Supreme Court with about 12 senior lawyers, including Gopal Subramanium, Shyam Divan, Meenakshi Arora, Arvind Datar and Anand Grover assisted by nearly 60 others. Most are working pro-bono.
Divan, whose oratory and arguments in the case have won him some new fans, is so committed to the cause he does not even have an Aadhaar number yet. As an independent lawyer, Apar Gupta’s interest was piqued in July 2015, when the government argued that citizens did not have an absolute right to privacy. “It was a key moment,’’ he recalls. Gupta has been assisting the senior counsels in the case and tweeting the legal twists and turns. Lawyer Gautam Bhatia’s handle has livetweeted legal proceedings, arguments by the government, the Aadhaar critics and court observations.
Apar Gupta | Lawyer
Biggest problem It is a tech-based solution that makes over-ambitious promises and does not respect the civil rights of an individual
What is the fix? The government must acknowledge that Aadhaar, in its current form, has too many problems. It needs to consider expert views. The UK had also created an ID project, and then spent more money to scrap it
DATA/TECH GEEKS
First, Bengaluru police published 13,000 call records online for a hackathon in October 2015, and then even the local pub started demanding Aadhaar for entry. This was enough to send alarm bells ringing among the data security community in Bengaluru. Internet researcher Srinivas Kodali, digital rights activist Anivar Aravind and others like him have been relentless in flagging off Aadhaar-related technical glitches, like the potential storing and cloning of biometrics. For Anand Venkatanarayanan, software engineer and privacy buff, curiosity turned into active disquiet in early 2017 when UIDAI announced that the 12-digit number was mandatory for the mid-day meal scheme. Around the same time, his five-year-old son ended up with a few missing fingerprints because of skin grafting to fix an injury. “Obviously I have more skin in the game than anyone else to understand the issues around biometric enrolment and authentication failures as even schools were demanding Aadhaar for admission,’’ he says.
Srinivas Kodali | Internet Researcher
Biggest problem Data sharing by the government without individual consent
What’s the fix? Allow Aadhaar as just one form of identification
THE MEME MISSIONARIES
Anyone heard the Ajit joke: “Robert, iska Aadhaar destroy kar do. Bina Aadhaar ke yeh zinda laash banke reh jayega”? Or the one about PM Modi advising Virushka to get an Aadhaar if they want their marriage recognised? Aadhaar critics got their big public boost after some social media influencers stepped up the game with memes, WhatsApp jokes, Twitter handles like @no2UID, and videos that grabbed attention. Political analyst Meghnad S, @memeghnad on Twitter, says that his antennae went up after the concerns raised by the parliamentary committee headed by former cabinet minister Yashwant Sinha, and interactions with social activists. “Some of us started talking online about the systemic flaws,” the 28-year-old says. Soon, the jokes were in full flow on #Aadhaarmemes. Sarcasm was a potent response to new reports about bank access and emergency medical care hinging on Aadhaar. Rachita Taneja, the 26-year-old creator of the web comic Sanitary Panels, sees Aadhaar as a human rights issue. She took on Amazon India for demanding mandatory Aadhaar-linking to investigate a lost or damaged package. Soon, reports started pouring in of other companies forcing users to link Aadhaar. This is the popular face of the Aadhaar resistance, supplementing the behind-the-scenes research and activism. Says Nikhil Pahwa, founder of Medianama and social influencer, who had also helmed the public campaign for net neutrality: “It is my civic duty to push for better policy and implementation. We need more people to get involved, because Aadhaar impacts us all.”
Rachita Taneja | Web Comic Creator
Biggest problem Recent data breaches show that our data is up for grabs and our privacy is not upheld
What is the fix? The question we should be asking is, can Aadhaar be fixed at all?
PHOREN FACTOR
Former CIA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden and Microsoft regional director and data security expert Troy Hunt have bolstered Aadhaar critics. In the last fortnight, Snowden said the programme was an “improper gate to service”. He also expressed fears about private companies storing personal databases with Aadhaar details. Hunt, on the other hand, wrote a piece describing the claim of Aadhaar being hack-proof as “ludicrous”. He points out that there are only “degrees of security and never an absolute position of security”.
Troy Hunt | Data Security Expert
Biggest problem Government’s assumption that Aadhaar is hack-proof and secure
What is the fix? Handle consumer concern better, control messaging and be more receptive to feedback. Acknowledge the reality that all systems have risks and that yes, it’s possible Aadhaar may be hacked