Aadhaar 2.0 - Government must introduce

Supreme Court had to inevitably step into the executive function of correctly implementing Aadhaar which presently is world’s top online identity system. After enrollment of 1.1 billion Indian residents and billions of transactions it has suffered zero data breaches. It offers the fastest, cheapest and most reliable way to establish the identity of a person using his/her bio-metric data. With existing infrastructure of UIDAI which manages Aadhaar, its system can sustain 1 million authentications per hour.

SC’s verdict of 26^th Sep’18 served to validate Aadhaar as a technical solution but it curtailed its applications pending legislative support and prerequisite data protection safeguards and most importantly, it held that the Government cannot deny a citizen any benefits for want of Aadhaar authentication. Systems designers, of applications that couple with Aadhaar, need to recognise that with two finger prints and iris, authentication is 99.5% inclusive, and with proposed facial recognition method, the inclusion may exceed 99.99% but it can’t touch 100%. Authentication can also fail due to Internet connectivity which is far lower than 99.5% in the best served areas in India. The solution to exclusion is mostly outside UIDAI.

Aadhaar as implemented by NDA Government deservedly got kicked right and left by many challengers but luckily the Unique ID System survived the constitutional validity test in the split verdict of the SC. Dissenting Justice, D.Y. Chandrachud upheld Jairam Ramesh’s contention that Aadhaar Act should be struck down as its scope is much wider than what a Money Bill permits. Indeed, due to Aadhaar being placed under a money bill, it was grossly underutilised, and now the majority verdict imposes further restrictions on its applications. Curiously, in the 1448 pages verdict, there is not a single reference to “Virtual ID” which is a facility deployed already by UIDAI (https://goo.gl/Edgi9e). VID, a 16-digit number that a user can generate in few seconds, permits authentication without divulging one’s 12-digit Aadhaar number. VID is advantage to the individual but disadvantage to the Government that wants to profile the individual and build a surveillance state! Individual can merrily share VID with any number of service providers, Government or private, without fear of getting profiled as VID is temporary – every time a user generates it, s/he gets a different VID.

Government can salvage its reputation and do the country immense good by coming up with Aadhaar 2.0. Here is what needs to happen for Aadhaar 2.0 to work; just a few tweaks are needed in the Aadhaar program itself (designed by Nandan Nilekani, who is easily one among world’s top technocrats and philanthropists and his team that was led by super talented R.S. Sharma).

1.      Government must replace the old ACT and even rename it. THE AADHAAR (TARGETED DELIVERY OF FINANCIAL AND OTHER SUBSIDIES, BENEFITS AND SERVICES) ACT, 2016 should be renamed to THE AADHAAR, UNIQUE ID SYSTEM FOR INDIAN RESIDENTS, ACT 2018 (if it doesn’t want it to resemble, the UPA’s bill “National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010”). Naturally the new bill must be discussed and voted both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Its scope should be expanded to include any application which demands online or offline identity authentication. AUTHENTICATING identity and LINKING Aadhaar number in external (to UIDAI) databases should be distinguished and unambiguously defined. At present 99.9% people don’t know the difference. Just disclosing one's Aadhaar number doesn't do anyone any harm, however, letting it get linked (stored) in myriad databases could be misused, especially by the State, to construct one's profile and perform clandestine surveillance. There should be no constraints on any service provider to utilise authentication services of UIDAI by use of VID because it provides unmatched cost-efficiency and reliability. Whole lot of infirmities in enrollment process and usage ambiguities that allow profiling and surveillance need to be done away with as has been pointed out in the SC verdict. The definition of “resident” needs to be tweaked for enrollment purposes, instead of 182 days, it could be reduced to 15 days. Aadhaar can and ought to be issued to foreigners or illegal immigrants who want to get one. It is the Voter Card (actually we need a Citizen ID as Voter ID excludes children) which confers benefits and rights and not a stand-alone Aadhaar number.

2.      Individual should have the option to offer Aadhaar number or VID when the request is for authenticating identity. Aadhar number cannot be demanded for authenticating except by named Government departments. Linking Aadhar number (seeding) should be highly restricted to named Government departments and any addition to the list should require parliamentary approval. For e.g. Aadhaar could be linked to Voter Card (in addition to PAN Card which is already mandated by Government and approved by SC). There is simply no case for linking Aadhaar number with bank accounts, mobile phones, DIN (in MCA’s portal), Driving License, Club memberships, Hotel bookings etc.

3.      Individual can query UIDAI and obtain a log of authentication requests – the program should be modified to show whether the requester was supplied VID or Aadhaar number. In case of VID, the log should show the VID supplied to the requester.

4.      The data privacy and data protection laws have got to be in place before any further linking of databases with Aadhaar number is demanded by the Government. B.N. Srikrishna Committee’s report has vague references to usage of personal data by the Government – “personal data may be processed by the government if this is considered necessary for any function of Parliament or State Legislature. This includes provision of services, issuing of licenses, etc.” Should these service providers be permitted to seed their databases with Aadhaar number or should they merely ask for VID for identity verification? It is extremely important to know the difference and the real purpose.

With Aadhaar2.0, security applications can be introduced in J & K and border States where forces can accost militants to establish their identity or citizenship. Electronic voting from anywhere can be enabled by Aadhaar linked Voter Card; citizenship or BPL status, when established reliably, enables the right people to avail benefits in various government schemes (SC erred in its ruling that Aadhaar should not be issued to illegal immigrants – it’s like putting the cart before the horse!); in future India can adopt referendum system routinely followed in Switzerland four times per year; Indian citizens may be asked to vote on important issues once a year. Advantage of ICT is that it can scale (it hardly matters India’s population is 150 times Switzerland’s). Why should India work with costly antiquated systems? Aadhaar 2.0 can do a lot to empower Indians, rich and poor, "bindaas" and security conscious, activists or dissidents alike!