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India’s identity scheme: The magic number

economist.com

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Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#21

Post by monsterix »

jk wrote: post #20
johnc055 wrote: post #18

If this was proposed for a 'developed' country, there would rightly be uproar from civil liberties groups, citizens etc. But because it's happening in an 'underdeveloped' country, it's somehow acceptable. I understand the challenges faced by the Indian government in providing services to a such a huge population but this approach is open to rampant abuse by the 'middlemen' and by elements in the government itself. An…

Is social security number in US being misused? Developed countries would already have a unique ID in place. Also, middlemen will not be able to take advantage of this. They will be cut out completely when the person has to avail the benefits after identifying himself/herself.

SSN took at least 150 years to implement and there is substantial difference between the American and Indian situation. Middlemen are already there isn't it? - Technical services companies like TCS, Infosys etc. who are getting paid in billions for something that Facebook/mobile type of platform could also implement at a much lower cost.

I really don't really see your argument. Can you explain a little more?

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

iandanforth wrote: post #3

I really dislike the economist. To me the very first thing this program makes me think of is how the government will abuse it. They briefly mention that there is the possibility that some sort of privacy issue might pop up in the future, but quickly dismiss the argument as outweighed by the ends these means achieve. They even get a swipe in at 'market distorting subsidies' while their at it. While other magazines mig…

The Economist, like the New Yorker and Atlantic, are not un-biased newspapers. They pitch themselves as analysis. It's good to get un-biased data but egotistical to presume that you will extract all the relevance from it a priori. What separates good analysis from the bad is if the underlying data and methodology are presented; The Economist does a good job at this.

Regarding abuse of identity data, the US has a SSN identifying everyone. And when you immigrate or naturalise you provide fingerprints.

Privacy has an important place, but it does need to be balanced against things. Things like starving, uneducated, and abused populations.

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#24

Post by jaipilot747 »

aangjie wrote: post #10
biggfoot wrote: post #6

There is tons to do even if the UID is successfully rolled out through out the country. First and foremost would be to get all government services to willingly accept the UID as the standard scheme ... I know that sounds ironic but such is the life in India ...

Can't agree more... Getting all the govt. bodies to start using UID could well take 5 years....

Ah! How optimistic :)

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#25

Post by pavel_lishin »

rickdangerous1 wrote: post #16

How will people with no eyes or no fingers (it happens) use government services?

We've got wrinkles all over our bodies. I can't imagine it's all that difficult to hack together something that can read a toe-print, or a wrist-print.

I think the bigger problem is if someone who's already enrolled suffers an eye or hand injury.

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#26

Post by jaipilot747 »

monsterix wrote: post #17

The only reason why this project will fall-on-the-face is that here a Government with least technical competence (notwithstanding the down-votes) is dreaming to implement a solution (almost Utopian) to the most socio-technically challenging problem known worldwide and that too for a country of a billion bare-footed men. Besides, there is no-one to stop the nation from bleeding to scams and corruption. Edited: Punctua…

This. A million times this.

A look at the site of our national telephone company (www.bsnl.co.in) and our railway ticketing service would tell you more than any comment I could write.

Like everywhere else, India has great programmers. Somehow the government never seems to be able to afford them.

I can't imagine the chaos that UID will bring.

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#27

Post by pavel_lishin »

johnc055 wrote: post #18

If this was proposed for a 'developed' country, there would rightly be uproar from civil liberties groups, citizens etc. But because it's happening in an 'underdeveloped' country, it's somehow acceptable. I understand the challenges faced by the Indian government in providing services to a such a huge population but this approach is open to rampant abuse by the 'middlemen' and by elements in the government itself. An…

I can hear the uproar now: "It's these poor people's RIGHT to starve because they cannot prove who they are, and because middle-men are stealing their grain!"

You're applying a first-world dilemma to a second-world nation a large percentage of whose citizens live in third-world poverty. Let's pull them up onto the level at which they can begin to worry about that, instead of trying to prematurely optimize.

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#28

Post by chii »

silvestrov wrote: post #22
rickdangerous1 wrote: post #16

How will people with no eyes or no fingers (it happens) use government services?

If you have neither fingers nor eyes, I think you have bigger problems than that.

Those without their eyes or fingers are probably the ones more requiring of gov't services.

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#29

Post by nmridul »

setrofim_ wrote: post #15
nmridul wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will atleast make it costly for the middle men to cheat. It will be difficult to replicate the retina / finger print scan. And that will surely reduce the low level corruption that directly affects the poor. Surely, this will not remove the high level corruptions (2g scandal etc).

Things will certainly get more difficult for these "middle men", but not by all that much. There is no need for them to replicate the retina/fingerprint scans or do anything hi-tech/expensive like that. The poor will still need to exchange the money paid into their accounts for actual goods and supplies like food and clean water. Simply giving the money directly to the poor will not affect the scarcity of these resou…

Yes, I agree. That issue is tough to solve.

But this will solve the issue about people that do not exist at all. The ones that is artificially created by the middle men to scoop the money off and who only exist on paper.

Re: India’s identity scheme: The magic number

#30

Post by nmridul »

johnc055 wrote: post #18

If this was proposed for a 'developed' country, there would rightly be uproar from civil liberties groups, citizens etc. But because it's happening in an 'underdeveloped' country, it's somehow acceptable. I understand the challenges faced by the Indian government in providing services to a such a huge population but this approach is open to rampant abuse by the 'middlemen' and by elements in the government itself. An…

When you have no food to eat, and you see that your food is taken by middle men, then the issues of privacy, freedom of speech etc becomes irrelevant.

But once your stomach is full and you don't have to work 18 hours a day x 7 days a week to feed your family (not talking about startup founders, but those other who will remain hungry even if they miss half a day of work day of work) then you start noticing your privacy and your freedom.

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