Unique Identification Project

Ashok Puri

MBA (IT), Ist Sem

Unique Identification or 'Aadhar' is a prestigious and visionary project of Govt. of India. The PMO (Prime Minister Office) has appointed Mr. Nandan Nilekani as the chief of UID project. Mr. Nilekani gets independent charge of UID authority like DMRC. No government agency will interfere in the planning, implication and any process of UID authority. The PMO will observe its progress and there is no limitation of funds.

On Sep 29^th, 2010, Tembli village of Maharashtra's Nandurbar district became the first village in India to get UIDs and was declared as an 'Aadhar' village by Prime minister Manmohan Singh and UPA President Sonia Gandhi. UID cards distribution will start full phase in year 2011.

This project will provide 16-digit UID number to 1.2 billion Indians. The UID card will have basic demographic information and a photograph of individual along with biometrics, including fingerprints and IRIS, stored in a chip. The database is being developed in partnership with the Government and private agencies, such as mobile service providers, cooking gas outlets, passport offices, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Public Distribution System (PDS) authorities. The moment a person comes in contact with any of the partner agencies, their details would be collected and the unique identification number would be issued. Once a person gets the number, he or she would have to just quote it on approaching another service provider.

With the help of UID, it will be easy to ensure if a person is a citizen of India, though the government maintains that UID is not a proof of citizenship. This will really help a country that is struggling with issues of terrorism and make it easier to curb identity theft related problems. The provision of a UID number and card to all the people of India will also be the first step towards the provision of social security to all the people of India. It will also be able to help in the prevention of various kinds of frauds committed by people. For example, if one person is trying to commit forgery in another person's name, it can be easily traced. Any credit card fraud can also be easily detected. This will immensely help government agencies in implementing public welfare programs at the grass root level. There are many welfare schemes that are provided by the government to people who fall in the BPL category. Often people who are quite well-off try to pass themselves as belonging to BPL category to reap the benefits of the welfare programs. The provision of a UID card will prevent all these kinds of problems and the real needy people will benefit from it.

However, there is another facet of this picture. The centralized database where data will be stored can easily be linked with other databases, such as the Employees' State Insurance Corporation and databases maintained by the police and intelligence agencies. This raises the risk of 'functionality creep', an instance being the use of the UID database for policing and surveillance. There is a serious concern that the biometric information collected as part of the UID project would be used for policing purposes. The regular use of biometric data in policing can lead to a large number of human rights violations, especially given the possibility of errors in fingerprint matching.

There is no guarantee that the personal data collected and stored in a centralized database will not be misused for purposes other than mere confirmation of identity. The several instances of alleged involvement of the state in mass carnage (as in Delhi in 1984 and Gujarat in 2002), and the police department's support to and defense of the widespread use of 'encounter killings' and other extra-constitutional correctional methods, has already given rise skepticism about the possibilities of the abuse of the UID database to serve undemocratic, illegal and unethical purposes. Also, the possibility of corruption and exploitation of data is far greater in a centralized database than when the information is dispersed across different databases. There is also a high risk of errors in the collection of information, recording of inaccurate data, corruption of data and unauthorized access.

The government and people involved in the Aadhar project need to come up with solutions to these issues so that misuse of UID card can be checked. If this objective is achieved, UID will change the face of policy implementation in India forever and strengthen the forces behind the development of the country. Unique numbers will help plug the loopholes in the PDS. Also this is going to be symbolic of a new and technologically advanced India.