-The Indian Express Bill Gates’s claim that it raises no privacy concerns is misleading. Crucial issues that have to do with confidentiality of data and state surveillance are at stake. According to Bill Gates, privacy is not a concern with Aadhaar (‘Aadhaar doesn’t pose any privacy issue, says Bill Gates’, IE, May 3). This widely-quoted statement would have been more convincing if Gates had shown a clear understanding of the Aadhaar project....

-TheWire.in The biometric identification agency and the government need to start listening to those who are pointing out critical flaws instead of issuing blanket denials and template answers. It is no surprise that the latest data and security breach surrounding the Aadhaar biometric programme has been selectively denied by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government of India and the Bharatiya Janata Party. All three have slammed news reports, calling it...

-The Hindu The very foundation of Aadhaar must be reconsidered in the light of the privacy judgment Predictably enough, the recent Supreme Court order affirming that privacy is a fundamental right sent Aadhaar’s public-relations machine into damage control mode. After denying the right to privacy for years, the government promptly changed gear and welcomed the judgment. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), suddenly asserted, “The Aadhaar...

-Frontline.in The Aadhaar project’s headlong push towards “total” enrolment of Indian citizens threatens the privacy of individuals on an unprecedented scale, while its patchy biometric system acts as a tool of denial for the most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the UID chugs along, regardless, fuelled by the avarice of private interests who seek to cash in on citizen data. IN the last seven years, the right to privacy of Indian citizens has been...

-The Hindu Business Line Fails to ease distress caused by demonetisation’ New Delhi: Terming the Union Budget 2017-18, presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, as detrimental to the realisation of the welfare State, as enshrined in the Constitution, civil rights organisations said it “fails to respond to the present situation of distress and unemployment especially aggravated by demonetisation.” “The Budget seems to be perpetuating unemployment, hunger and malnutrition,” said a release by the...