Unique Identification Authority of India (PCS MAINS 2009,GS PAPER)

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) (Hindi: भारतीय विशिष्ट पहचान प्राधिकरण), is an agency of the Government of India responsible for implementing the AADHAAR scheme, a unique identification project. It was established in February 2009, and will own and operate the Unique Identification Number database.^[1] The authority aims to provide a unique id number to all Indians, but not smart cards.^[2] The authority will maintain a database of residents containing biometric and other data.^[3]

The agency is headed by a chairman, who holds a cabinet rank. The UIDAI is part of the Planning Commission of India.^[1][4] Nandan Nilekani, former co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, was appointed as the first Chairman of the authority in June 2009.^[5]Ram Sewak Sharma, an IAS Officer of Jharkhand Government is the Director General and Mission Director of the Authority.^[6]

Salient features of AADHAAR

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number which the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will issue for all residents in India. The number will be stored in a centralized database and linked to the basic demographics and biometric information – photograph, ten fingerprints and iris – of each individual. It is easily verifiable in an online, cost-effective way. It is unique and robust enough to eliminate the large number of duplicate and fake identities in government and private databases The random number generated will be devoid of any classification based on caste, creed, religion and geography.^[7]

Launch

UIDAI launched AADHAAR program in the tribal village, Tembhli, in Shahada,^[8][9] Nandurbar, Maharashtra on 29 September 2010. The program was inaugurated by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh along with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.^[10] The first resident to receive an AADHAAR was Rajana Sonawane of Tembhli village.^[11]

Name and logo

UID project is known as AADHAAR meaning 'support' or 'foundation', and its logo is a yellow sun with a fingerprint embedded in its centre. The logo was designed by Atul Sudhakar Rao Pande.^[

Projected benefits

1. Aadhaar will become the single source of identity verification. Residents would be spared the hassle of repeatedly providing supporting identity documents each time they wish to access services such as obtaining a bank account, passport, driving license and so on.
2. By providing a clear proof of identity, Aadhaar will also facilitate entry for poor and underprivileged residents into the formal banking system and the opportunity to avail services provided by the government and the private sector.
3. Giving migrants mobility of identity.
4. Financial inclusion with deeper penetration of banks, insurance and easy distribution of benefits of government schemes.^[2Risks and criticism

5. Report of the Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance

   In December 2011, Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance headed by Sri. Yaswanth Sinha while considering theNational Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 (that was to give legal backing for the whole exercise), termed the project as direction less and conceptualised with no clarity of purpose.^[33] The committee also expressed its reservations on the technology used for the project calling it "untested, unproven, unreliable and unsafe".^[34]
   According to the standing committee report the scheme is riddled with serious lacunae and concernes. “The UID scheme has been conceptualized with no clarity of purpose and leaving many things to be sorted out during the course of its implementation; and is being implemented in a directionless way with a lot of confusion.” The report continues “…The scheme which was initially meant for BPL families has been extended for all residents in India and to certain other persons. The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), constituted for the purpose of collating the two schemes namely, the UID and National Population Register(NPR), and to look into the methodology and specifying target for effective completion of the UID scheme, failed to take concrete decision on important issues…” More importantly the committee has observed that the UID scheme lacks clarity on even the basic purpose of issuing “aadhaar” number.

   Financial Exclusion

   Observation 3(f) of the standing committee reads: “The full or near full coverage of marginalized sections for issuing aadhaar numbers could not be achieved mainly owing to two reasons viz. (i) the UIDAI doesn’t have the statistical data relating to them; and (ii) estimated failure of biometrics is expected to be as high as 15% due to a large chunk of population being dependent on manual labour.” Even the Ministry of Planning in their written reply to the standing committee stated that “failure to enroll is a reality”. The introducer system wont be of much use. How many introducers or GOs would be there to introduce millions of slum dwellers, tribal population, or in rural India where they hardly have electricity or internet connectivity? (friendly government school teachers who rang your door bell a year ago may perhaps know some of them) If they can find some introducers, why can’t some anti-social elements too can find out some others? The result would be disastrous for our national security for innumerable foreign national (including terrorists) would be enrolled in Aadhaar database with local addresses. Chances are that many more people in rural India where there is no electricity and internet connectivity will be excluded from social welfare schemes even if they acquire aadhaar number.
   The committee in observation 3(d) notes: “Continuance of various existing forms of identity and the requirement of furnishing „other documents‟ for proof of address, even after issue of aadhaar number, would render the claim made by the Ministry that aadhaar number is to be used as a general proof of identity and proof of address meaningless”. UIDAI clearly says that UID is no substitutes for existing Ids and The Working Paper of the UIDAI which starts with a claim that UID will help the poor access various services ends with a caveat: “UID will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits and entitlements”^[34]

   Dependency on Private Players

   “The National Informatics Centre (NIC) have pointed out that the issues relating to privacy and security of UID data could be better handled by storing in a Government data centre;” . Even then the UID project is dependent on private players. The committee further notes: “9. The Committee are afraid that the scheme may end up being dependent on private agencies, despite contractual agreement made by the UIDAI with several private vendors. As a result, the beneficiaries may be forced to pay over and above the charges to be prescribed by the UIDAI for availing of benefits and services, which are now available free of cost “ . UIADAI has entered into contracts with several government and non-government agencies for enrollment and data collection. The private companies include foreign companies like L1 Identity solutions and Accenture that have even ex-CIA officials on board and as staff.

   National Security

   The committee has expressed concern over the implications of the Project Aadhaar on national security. The committee is “The Committee are unable to understand the rationale of expanding the scheme to persons who are not citizens, as this entails numerous benefits proposed by the Government” “This will, they apprehend, make even illegal immigrants entitled for an aadhaar number”. The committee especially is concerned about the efficacy of introducer system on national security. As opined by many the introducer system could result in many anti-national and anti-social elements acquiring aadhaar numbers on false addresses.

   Relationship with National Population Registry

   UIDAI is using data collected by the Census authorities to prepare th(NPR) for creating the UIDs. The NPR is not an exclusive database of Indian Citizens. It contains data on all residents of the country including foreigners. Therefore, issuing UIDs based on the data in the NPR would help illegal migrants get these IDs and would allow them access the government services and programs. Nationality of the individual is one of the variables being recorded during the enumeration of NPR. But the instruction to the Census personnel says:"Nationality of each person has to be asked from the respondent and recorded as declared by him". The officials have been asked to advise people to give correct nationality and that he/she can be penalized for giving false information. Such advise may not work with illegal migrants. The responsibility of proving the identity still lies on the shoulders of residents and not on UIDAI.^[35][36]e 

   Potential privacy and civil liberty issues

   Some activists have expressed concerns^[37] that Aadhaar has potentials for civil liberty and privacy violations,^[38] especially when registrars include non-government agencies.^[39] Many eminent personalities, including former Supreme Court Justice. V R Krishna Iyer, Historian Romila Thaper, Independent Law Researcher Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Magsaysay Award winner Aruna Roy, and Booker prize winner Arundhathi Roy have questioned the legal validity of the whole exercise. The standing committee on finance observes that: ”The clearance of the Ministry of Law & Justice for issuing aadhaar numbers, pending passing the Bill by Parliament, on the ground that powers of the Executive are co-extensive with the legislative power of the Government and that the Government is not debarred from exercising its Executive power in the areas which are not regulated by the legislation does not satisfy the Committee. The Committee are constrained to point out that in the instant case, since the law making is underway with the bill being pending, any executive action is as unethical and violative of Parliament‟s prerogatives.” The committee also observed that a National Data Protection Law is “a pre-requisite for any law that deals with large scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases. Itwould be difficult to deal with the issues like access and misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, linking and matching of data bases and securing confidentiality of information etc.“ The UIDAI’s claim that it has incorporated data protection principles within its policy and implementation framework does not satisfy the committee.
   In another observation that could raise many questions on the legalities of collections of biometrics even for NPR, the committee notes that “The collection of biometric information and its linkage with personal information of individuals without amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 as well as the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, appears to be beyond the scope of subordinate legislation, which needs to be examined in detail by Parliament”.^[34]
   The committee deliberated at length on the civil liberty perspective of the project and considered opinions from eminent personalities in the field of law and civil rights. And speaking on the possibilities of data misuse, it notes that “The Committee are at a loss to understand as to how the UIDAI, without statutory power, could address key issues concerning their basic functioning and initiate proceedings against the defaulters and penalize them.” The committee also notes that the scheme leads to ID fraud as prevalent in some countries.^[34]

   Cabinet and Parliamentary approval

   The former chief minister of Kerala, V. S. Achuthanandan claimed in July 2011 that the program was being launched without "proper debate" in parliament.^[40] Other activists have expressed similar concerns.^[41] In a letter to the Prime Minister in November 2011, home minister P. Chidambaram has also expressed discomfort about the fact that the project has no cabinet clearance, and hence, may be questioned at a later date.^[42]
   On 17 December 2011 parliamentary standing committee on finance chaired by Yashwant Sinha “…the Committee categorically convey their unacceptability of the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010…The Committee would, thus, urge the Government to reconsider and review the UID scheme.…”
   This was the conclusion of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance (SCoF), which examined the Bill to convert the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) into a statutory authority. With this categorical rebuff, the SCoF dealt a body blow to the Aadhaar project, which is being implemented from September 2010 without Parliament's approval.^[43]

   Economic risks

   The projected costs of the Aadhaar project have been quoted between US$6 billion and US$30.42 billion. These costs may not be covered by future revenue produced from the project, which is estimated at US$1.32 billion.^{[citation needed]}
   Parliaments standing Committee on Finance committee discussed at length on the financial implications of the project as evident from page 23-25 of their report. Till date Rs.3170.32 crores have been allotted for the project. More fund clearance is on the anvil. Rs. 8861 crore has been approved for Phase III of the project. There are no clear figures available on the financial burden the project could incur while some independent estimates pegs the cost as high as Rs.1,50,000crores. As was the case with UK ID project, the cost will escalate for sure. Lets quote from the report of the standing committee on finance : “(a) no committee has been constituted to study the financial implications of the UID scheme; and (b) comparative costs of the aadhaar number and various existing ID documents are also not available. The Committee also note that Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the UID Scheme has been done much later in April, 2011. The Committee thus strongly disapprove of the hasty manner in which the UID scheme has been approved. Unlike many other schemes / projects, no comprehensive feasibility study, which ought to have been done before approving such an expensive scheme, has been done involving all aspects of the UID scheme including cost-benefit analysis, comparative costs of aadhaar number and various forms of existing identity, financial implications and prevention of identity theft, for example, using hologram enabled ration card to eliminate fake and duplicate beneficiaries