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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | What the UID project will not do by Vishv Bandhu Gupta

What the UID project will not do by Vishv Bandhu Gupta

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published Published on Jun 3, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 3, 2011
The concept of “a ubiquitous magic plastic” that bring out the unique in a living person has caught the fascination of most of us. An unpopular government sees in it the ability of cutting a long red tape short to correctly identify the genuine citizens in need. The agonised cops of India see in it a great ally to apprehend the much-wanted terrorists, whose biometric data could now be verified with existing records, as and when these come into existence, before he commits another heinous crime.

These expectations are fair. But, the fumes of fire cooking such recipes are rising from unforeseen quarters, which must raise serious concerns in India. Major fires, ironically, are caused by the maniac rush of more reliable and sophisticated software in the market to collect the biometric data of a person, making earlier biometric-reading software and newly-bought hardware obsolete. Further, other factors like a person ageing and the data collected under different weather condition influence the result within the same software, inducing false errors. In South Korea, where the municipal authorities recently introduced “a thumb impression biometric software”, chipped on the closing handle of cars to park and drive away the car to ensure automatic security, raised false “error alarm” in three per cent of the cases. It forced the authorities to shut down the project temporarily.

None of these technologies are being substantially tested for trial in India by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The UIDAI, very inexplicably, does not even comment on such doubts, which have surfaced in the technologically advanced countries; neither does it tell us how it intends to counter such errors? It has not started the testing of its software for a real run on any of the unique IDs. This expensive government mission, for which Rs 45,000 crore have been earmarked by Finance Ministry, now claims that the Aadhaar project of the UIDAI will just provide unique ID numbers, and not unique ID cards, as was its original mandate. The UIDAI is an attached office under the Planning Commission, which says that the job of the UIDAI is to develop and implement the necessary institutional, technical and legal infrastructure to issue unique identity numbers to Indian residents (read it as “the UIDAI will issue only unique numbers not smart cards”). The UIDAI has been buying time, when hundreds of crores of rupees are going down the drain every week.

David Moss, who spent eight years campaigning against the UK's National ID (NID) card scheme, has questioned the logic of the UIDAI and the government to depend on biometrics to produce UID numbers. In a report titled, “India's ID Card Scheme Drowning in a Sea of False Positives”, Moss said, “[The FPIR] conclusions do not follow from the evidence reported. Nothing in UIDAI's surprisingly low-quality report suggests that it would be feasible to prove that each electronic identity on the Central ID Repository (CIDR) is unique. Not with a billion plus people on the database. Far from it, India can be confident, from the figures quoted in UIDAI's proof of concept trial report, that de-duplication could never be achieved.”

The UIDAI is also silent on several important facts being reported in newspapers every day. The UK government initially allocated £250 million in 2002 for developing the NID project for a period of eight years. Soon it realised that errors in reading biometric parameters were far above the acceptable level, so it shut down the department responsible for it in February 2010. This experiment cost the UK treasury an estimated £4.5 billion in the eight years for which it was carried.

The problems with the UIDAI are manifold. One problem area is the database of citizens the authority has used for compiling its lists. It has drawn from the beneficiaries of the Central and state government pensioners, which number several millions. The second lot comes from the Indian security forces, which can provide fairly reliable data. Allotting a UID number to a person from such reliable stock of government rolls does not involve great efforts, but was UIDAI head Nandan Nilekani hired and allocated huge sums running into Rs 45,000 crore for such simple chores?

Some reports that have emanated from the Planning Commission state that the UIDAI has not only ignored privacy concerns but also ignored sample test results of its pilot project. Both the government and the UIDAI have been in such a hurry that they have neglected the basic principles of pilot testing and size of the sample. For over 1.2 billion UID numbers, they have used data from just 20,000 people, in pairs, as sample and have on the basis of the results gone ahead with the UID number through the Aadhaar project.

Spending very little or no money at all on independent research or developing biometric solutions, the UIDAI is partnering with companies which have proprietary technologies and upfront loyalties with foreign governments. For example, the tenders and contracts awarded by the UIDAI appears to be opaque in nature. Some of companies, which were selected, and their top managements have a tainted background and thus have been criticised in the media across the world.

The UIDAI had selected three consortia – Accenture, Mahindra Satyam-Morpho and L1 Identity Solutions – to implement the core biometric identification system for the Aadhaar programme. The UIDAI had stated that the three agencies would design, supply, install, commission, maintain and support the multi-modal automatic biometric identification subsystem. The three vendors would also be involved in development of a multi-modal software development kit for client enrollment stations, the verification server, manual adjudication and monitoring functions of the UID application.

L1 Identity Solutions, in particular, has names associated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other American defence organisations in its top management or as directors. Although there is nothing wrong in having former top government officials as directors in a company, it is often looked upon as something not quite right. Post-retirement, many top government officials have joined hands with fat for-profit companies that deal in their areas of expertise. In fact, in many countries, it has now become a trend.

Thousands of other former intelligence officers, who have left the CIA and other agencies, have returned as contractors, often making two or three times more money than what they were making in their former jobs. According to a report published in 2008, contractors were responsible for at least half of the estimated $48 billion a year the US government spends on intelligence. The real figures are kept hidden under the pretext of national security.

L1 Identity Solutions is one of the largest defence contractors in the US and specialises in selling face-recognition systems, electronic passports, such as Fly Clear and other biometric technology, to over 25 countries around the world. It is also contracted by the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for passports, visas, driving licenses and transportation workers' ID cards. The company is on the way to becoming a monopoly in the US, especially for providing Real ID and driver’s licenses.

According to an IT expert, L1 and NADRA, the Pakistan unique identity agency, appear to have been created on the same business model. “Staffed strongly by persons with intelligence (quasi-military) links, the major goals of both agencies are to do business with their respective governments, and they succeed to the extent that they have virtually no competition. And this is the company UIDAI has welcomed into India,” said an expert.

Vishv Bandhu Gupta is a former commissioner of the income tax department
monsoonrains@gmail.com

Tehelka, 2 June, 2011, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main49.asp?filename=Ws020611UIDproject.asp

Tagged with: uid Governance



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