Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

Aadhar provides multiple levels of security, Number > Fingerprint > Iris >= OTP / Two-Factor. Finally fingerprints are not as easy to fake, even if they are faked depending on deployment a system can randomly ask for higher level of authentication such as iris or OTP. By having these multiple authentication methods its easier to tune the system for fraud detection vs ease-of-use. I can understand why the government is not publicizing all the anti-fraud measures since its always a game of cat & mouse.

>> There would not be an API for commercial services

This makes no sense, in USA the SSN is typically shared with thousands of services, landlords, apps. In fact the API has potential to open up secure commerce and break the MasterCard/Visa duopoly.

The poor and the rich have had "real" identification that has worked well - the electoral ID for example. Forcing aadhar down everyone's throat with no practical complaint redressal is the issue here. (Good luck getting UIDAI to take responsibility)

Aadhar is not progress. Forcing biometric identification that relies on brittle infra is not progress. It is a sign of short sighted faith in solving people problems with technology.

India can solve its problems by its own when it recognizes that beyond money, there are people who are willing to support its technology movement. Competant tech people have time and again come out against the architecture of the solution - the last to suffer for it was Kiran Jonnalgadda (jackerhack on twitter).

This was a solution designed to give absolute oversight of people, as an exclusionary mechanism.

Clarifying more.

1. Aadhar verification failures are a lot more than its advocates proposes. I have seen logs of verification failure with rates upwards of 30%. (No, I am not willing to disclose where, except that it was available publicly on the website of an organisation associated with the government). Citizens will still go starving with that kind of failure rates. Remember that Aadhar Card is a piece of paper with your Aadhar number on it and no storage whatsoever. This is different from countries like Malaysia where they have a national ID card with biometrics stored on chip.

If the verification fails and it does fail all the time, good luck to the poor people who wants UIDAI (not even under legal obligation to do it by the way) to redress the complaint.

2. Privacy.

I like it how everyone conviniently ignores this :

"Even worse, the government of India is selling access to this database to private companies to use and combine with other datasets as they wish. This would allow companies to have access to some of your most intimate details and create detailed profiles of you, in ways you can’t necessarily see or control. The government can also share user data “in the interest of national security,” a term that remains dangerously undefined. There are little to no protections on how Aadhaar data is used, and certainly no meaningful user consent. Individual privacy and security cannot be adequately protected and users cannot have trust in systems when they do not have transparency or a choice in how their private information will be used."

I mean WTF man. Really ? That is what a Government is supposed to do ? Sell your citizen's data ? Because that is exactly what is happening here.

Good job Mozilla. You prove you stand for people.

1) Aadhaar is not fundamentally different than a National ID which every other country in this world has. India not only lacked it, out birth registrations certificates weren't reliable at all.

2) Yes they do collection Biometrics(BM). But BM are never shared with any other agency/company. And it's strictly codified in law. BM are only used for deduplication(1b+ population), and authentication.

3) For KYC(Know your Customer) or E-Payments BM based authentication is much more secure than what's being used currently - signatures, and self attested xerox which anyone can forge/photoshop.

4) You can also ask Aadhaar server to dispatch an SMS to your mobile number every time an authentication happens. Now compare that your signature/xerox which anyone can forge/photoshop and you would have no idea about it.

5) In this changing world who would you want to control identity? A private company like Apple which can block you or some developer anytime and there would be no recourse? Or a govt agency - backed by a law of Parliament - that you can drag to court.

6) Want to build a marketplace for house-maids? Or for farmers? Don't want it bogged down by scamsters which in the end depressing adaption?

Easy add Aadhaar based autnetication to your app. http://bridge.aadhaarconnect.com/

7) For financial products like bank accounts, mutual funds etc Aadhaar brings down compliance cost. So for a MF while in the old system it wouldn't be viable to take an investment of less than 50k Rs because the compliance cost itself would be 1k Rs or something, now you can do it under 10 Rs.

Are we making a better world or not, in which the poor have access to Mutual funds, Insurance etc or Mozilla thinks it's not?

Please watch this https://youtu.be/LJCEyqcKN3Q?t=5m50s and tell me which other country in this world can match this. Getting a loan in under 8 minutes. Or opening a bank account in under 10 min.

This is a technological revolution - but not happening in Copenhagen or Zurich, but dusty villages of India.

I have had enough of these Aadhaar critics - and now Mozilla - who have colonised their minds with some western ideas, and are unable to see what's happening in India.

Bottom line, there's no better example of how technology can drastically change lives for the poor and the needy than Aadhaar.

Those who are unable to see it, are usually just biased because need clicks for their publications, or need to build their reputation as security analyst or something by bashing something. Look into this thread itself, and you'll find them linking to each other's twitter profile etc. Sickening really.