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Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

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Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#21

Post by middleclick »

dhaneshnm wrote: post #11

Indian left wing has been calling the current ruling party and the government "Fascist"[1] for a while now. So there is quite a bit of fear mongering regarding Adhar, as left suspects that govt. will eventually use this to crack down on the dissenting voices. But for those who don't share that opinion, this is part that needs attention, "The guidelines could have come earlier, and given large data leaks in the past m…

And it is the current party that was parading the dangers of Aadhar when they were in opposition. I like how you gave a completely one-sided view of the story. There have been documented cases of Aadhar misuse and personal information being leaked, but of course none of this bothers you.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#22

Post by calvinbhai »

Does the author mean, biometric details have been leaked? I think he last 3 paragraphs, it looks like she's kind of using the numbers leak (aadhar numbers are not meant to be private, like SSN in the US) and the biometrics leak interchangeably.

AFAIK, no biometric data has been leaked yet.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#23

Post by aangjie »

acdjuiamadfn wrote: post #7

It took gas connection 6 months (or upto years) and now I get it in 3 fucking hours. Same for license and what not. Sure there are problems to be fixed but lets fix basic problems first

Bro, just got aadhaar fingerprint auth rejected two days in a row. Don't think i'll get it to work anytime soon. Local states' aadhaar auth rejection seems to be 30% rejection rate. (For first 3 months of 2017).

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#24

Post by srisa »

rajadigopula wrote: post #17
jiraaya wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they don't. Do you even realize what you are talking about! If they did that, it is easy to conceive a system that can determine whom you voted for (at a certain level of confidence). That kind of information can have potentially harmful consequences for many.

You don't need to link your vote to aadhaar. Vote can be anonymized, but polling booths can still check and identify voters using aadhaar and easily avoid duplicate votes & rigging.

If online verification is used, issues of no-connectivity/poor-connectivity/latency can cause problems. Polling units are sent to remote corners of the country.

Loading the polling unit with aadhar database can be one approach. Very few know (relative to the number of personnel involved in the polling process), as to which polling unit will go to which polling station. Trying to load constituency specific database into polling unit will increase the surface area of the people who have to know which unit goes where. Loading the aadhar database of full constituency into polling units might not be technically feasible.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#25

Post by jitix »

pushparajxa wrote: post #10

This is on steps to provide Universal Basic Income on the long run. That which requires ID & bank account for every person to deposit cash.

This is actually one of the long term plans. Like another comment said it's very difficult to identify who's a citizen and who's not, so people are likely to give up some privacy for getting other benefits. In fact most people outside of the urban areas don't even give a fk about privacy and are merely looking forward to getting food for the next meal. So in India the people's priorities are very different than that in US/EU.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#26

Post by kchoudhu »

thrawy67 wrote: post #16

From the article: > However, unlike countries where similar schemes have been implemented, invasive bio-metric collection is being imposed as a condition for basic entitlements in India Remember: India has a unique set of challenges to overcome if it has to survive and prosper as a nation. It is surrounded by not-so-amenable neighbors and with cross-border infiltration at a constant strategy used against India ("deat…

I keep hearing that 20 million number in every thread about Indian migration, and I can never find anything to back it up.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#27

Post by thrawy67 »

kchoudhu wrote: post #26
thrawy67 wrote: post #16

From the article: > However, unlike countries where similar schemes have been implemented, invasive bio-metric collection is being imposed as a condition for basic entitlements in India Remember: India has a unique set of challenges to overcome if it has to survive and prosper as a nation. It is surrounded by not-so-amenable neighbors and with cross-border infiltration at a constant strategy used against India ("deat…

I keep hearing that 20 million number in every thread about Indian migration, and I can never find anything to back it up.

Please refer to the ToI article I cited in the reference. This figure is not pulled out of thin air, but neither it is 100% accurate.

From ToI article: "The government, citing inputs available with it , told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that there were around 2 crore Bangladeshi immigrants staying illegally in India.

If you were to believe the government estimates, you have to believe it. Even if it's off by 50%, you still have 10 million of them.

P.S: In 2004 >> the estimate was 12 million, according to the article.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#28

Post by wtmt »

acdjuiamadfn wrote: post #7

It took gas connection 6 months (or upto years) and now I get it in 3 fucking hours. Same for license and what not. Sure there are problems to be fixed but lets fix basic problems first

Those changes have little to do with Aadhaar. Efficiency in delivery could be achieved despite Aadhaar. If you look at the savings figures and all the analysis put in by many people, you'd understand that the government is publishing bogus figures. In the case of cooking gas (LPG), even the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) disproved the claims of huge savings.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#29

Post by wtmt »

ashwinm wrote: post #15
dragonsh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's real and existential threat, given Indian govt is lousy when it comes to data protection. Indeed all aadhaar data is floating in many corporations especially the one supporting current govt. No laws on its misuse and govt cannot be taken to court. Indeed by blaming and divisive politics current govt is very capable to divert attention from real issue and blame left and calls all those opposing it enemies.

You have no idea what you are talking about my biased friend.

Please dispute points with explanations or counterpoints instead of condescending dismissals. It looks like you are the one who does not have enough information to counter GPs stated points.

Re: Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India

#30

Post by wtmt »

bdeorus wrote: post #4

The whole purpose of the project was to provide means of identification of people that didn't have any kind of document – passport, driving license, etc. Identification of people is crucial in regions where some people receive subsidies as ensures it reaches the right people. It's a shame this platform is being potentially used to violate citizen's privacy. Maybe a EU GDPR-esque regulation would balance the control o…

> The whole purpose of the project was to provide means of identification of people that didn't have any kind of document – passport, driving license, etc.

That was just the guise under which it was launched. Aadhaar has been a poorly thought out and poorly implemented solution that's still looking for problems. Responses to RTI (Right to Information) queries have shown that 99.7% of people who enrolled for Aadhaar did so using existing identification documents. Only 0.3% enrolled without identity documents using the "introducer" system. [1]

[1]: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/very-few-indians-didn-t-...

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