A critical analysis of the Objections to UID (Aadhar)

A critical analysis of the Objections to UID (Aadhar)

a) UID to reform PDS and ensure Food Security

Preventing leakage:

De-duplication: Is the UID project based on the assumption that leakage of welfare funds is due to duplicate identity. What is the basis, if this assumption is true at all?

De-duplication is not the focus. The focus is on preventing diversion and improving supply chain performance in PDS, by enabling beneficiaries to confirm through UID-auth, that they have received their entitlement. UID will also enable greater inclusion of the population into the PDS, by providing identification to people who till now, have had none.

Storage & stock accounting: Rs. 60,000 Crores worth of food grains are written off as damaged, every year, due to poor storage. The Govt claims lack of funds for storage. Write-offs could be much more than actual damage, giving scope for fraud. Proper storage and stock accounting would prevent major PDS leaks. Can the UID help with this?

The UID can improve stock accounting, by requiring Aadhaar authentication linked to an MIS each time grain is transferred in the supply chain from  one stakeholder to the next.  (Detailed approach in UID-PDS document)

Infrastructure:

How does UIDAI propose to tackle this and problems of connectivity, rural electrification and maintenance of scanners?

Does UIDAI take responsibility for this at all - or this also has to be implemented by PDS?

There are important connectivity efforts being undertaken by the Indian government, through the USO fund as well as through a coordinated effort, with a budget of Rs. 6000 crore, to build a national network that reaches down to local panchayats. In addition, mobile coverage is now possible across 85% of the country. the UIDAI will enable authentication that is both online as well as over mobile. The fingerprint readers will be very small, and may also be usable on battery.

Pro poor:

How will the UID solve the problem of the poor being at the mercy of FPS/contractors/govt officials? They would still have to depend on them for their rations. Also, this could happen at the enrollment stage itself. How is the UIDAI planning to tackle this to ensure:

a)      Everyone get enrolled and middle men are not at play b)  Poor is not at the mercy of middle men

b)      Individuals will have multiple registrars through which they can enroll they will be able to collect rations from any FPS, not just the FPS in their village. Corrupt FPS outlets will increasingly fail to receive additional stock from governments, since replenishment of stock will be linked to authenticated offtake by beneficiaries.

 UID as a model

Data Security

While enrolling:

Will private agencies be utilized as registrars?

Registrars are departments or agencies of the State Government/Union territory, public sector undertakings and other agencies and organisations, who, in normal course of implementation of some of their programs, activities or operations interact with  residents  Examples of such Registrars are Rural Development Department (for NREGS) or Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department (for PDS), insurance companies such as Life Insurance Corporation and Banks. Registrar includes government, public sector and private sector organizations.

At this stage, the UIDAI has primarily engaged with state governments, central ministries and public sector organizations.    The UIDAI has entered into MoUs with State Governments / Union Territories and they define the specific Departments they would like to appoint in order to rollout the project

What are the data security measures to be taken while fielding data?

The data is collected on software provided by UIDAI and encrypted at the point of collection. This is done to protect against third party intervention and access to data. UID is focused on data security from the point of collection at the enrollment station right until its storage in the central identities data repository

Data Security

While using UID:

What are the data security measures when a third party accesses the UIDAI database for verification?

There is no access provided to the database. For authentication a query is send to the CIDR and in response to this UID will send a yes or a no response - no information will flow out of the CIDR. UIDAI will be releasing its authentication white paper shortly in which these issues will be addressed in detail.

Why does UIDAI claim that registration is “Voluntary’’, when the Citizenship Act makes it compulsory?

Any resident is entitled to a aadhaar number. The exercise of preparing the National population Register is being under taken by the Registrar General of India under the Citizenship Rules, this is independent of the UIDAI. The RGI is a "Registrar" of the UIDAI like other Registrars - namely PDS department of the Govt of A.P. Karnataka etc.

Proof of Concept studies:

What is the testing that has been employed to ensure success of this model?

Where have the proof of concept studies been done? What does "Proof of concept" involve? Is it merely checking technical issues or other practical bottlenecks as well?

Technical testing has been done using about 60,000 persons across three states and predominantly rural demographic regions.

The PoC were done in AP, Karnataka and Bihar. They were technical. We did not interact with PDS supply chain or other issues

The U.K Failure

 The UK National Identity Card was cancelled because of the following reasons (refer LSE report on National Identity Cards)

·         The concept of a national Id has not been abandoned ONLY the current proposal has been abandoned

·         The current proposal has been abandoned as the primary aim for a biometric solution in UK was linked to curb illegal immigration, terrorism and stop identity theft. The LSE report contends that the following objectives can be achieved at a much lesser cost by conventional legislation and policing instead of an overly prescriptive solution cost 10.6 billion pounds

·         The reports clearly accepts the benefits of a nationwide identification system but is against the bio-metric solution as it does not have public trust behind it due to privacy issues as well as the cost is not justified for the benefits envisaged

·         In fact the LSE report suggests an alternative electronic-ID card instead of the bio-metric solution with more control of personal data to the individual rather than the government. Quoting from the LSE Report "

o   The concept of a national identity system is supportable, but the current proposals are not feasible. The Report therefore outlines an alternative model for an identity card scheme that will achieve the goals of the legislation more effectively

·         While UK has cancelled their bio-metric based National ID project as well as Australia (following UK's lead), similar programs involving e-Cards (have an imbedded microchip to store data on the card as well as the central server) have been very successful in Italy and Belgium. They serve the same purpose of UID, albeit without the Bio-Metric information. This may be considered as a viable option if Bio-Metrics is the only sticking point. These cards can be password protected booth in offline and online mode to address privacy issues

·         Our nation with a large population of migrants, illegal immigrants as well unregistered births and deaths, needs a common and reliable source of identity through they can access all government as well as private facilities like loans, bank accounts etc.

·         As per a Rangarajan report on Financial Inclusion, nearly 80% of our population is excluded from banking, Insurance and credit facilities due to lack of proper documentation. (Refer http://indiamicrofinance.com/financial-inclusion-in-india-some-key-statistics.html)

·         Also a centralized id can be linked to ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme), Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, Law enforcement, Illegal immigration, unemployment tracking etc.

·         The national identification model linked to all government and private service, is being successfully followed in EU (UK, Belgium, Italy, Romania, etc) as well as US & Canada. The most well known example being the SSN in US to which all services are linked and helps to provide a single view of a person across all touchpoints, be it banking to education to law enforcement as well as employment.

·         A national id can help PDS by:

o   One Aadhaar = one beneficiary – Complete prevention of duplication due to UID’s linkage to biometric

o   Portability in identification - Agencies and services can contact the central Unique Identification database from anywhere in the country to confirm a beneficiary’s identity.

o   Ensuring Entitlements reach the right beneficiary - Using Aadhaar for real-time identity verification at the FPS, when beneficiaries collect their entitlements, will help governments verify that the benefits reached the person they were meant for

o   Track foodgrain movement - as it is exchanged between PDS intermediaries. This would curb diversions, and help identify bottlenecks in delivery

o   Aadhaar based MIS – Decentralised inventory management and Order registration and procurement. This would also enable the PDS to implement state wide information systems that link all ration shops in a state, and give beneficiaries more flexibility in how they collect their entitlements, and from which ration shop

o   Online food account on the PDS system -  which would enable governments to directly communicate details of food entitlements to resident

·         Thus the usability of a common identification accepted across government and private institutions is beyond dispute, the only question being whether the id should be biometric or not and whether the costs associated with a bio-metric id is justified or not as the cost of an electronic id card is on an average 40-50% lesser than the cost of biometric card.

Benefits of Bio-Metric Identification

·         In a country like India where corruption is not only systemic but also almost the norm, all forms of ID's which can be easily faked are susceptible to be tampered with and misused. While this is still possible with Bio-Metrics but a combination of Bio-metrics with other personal data gives a very high probability of success in avoiding duplication and fake UID numbers. The only reason why Bio-Metrics makes sense in India is because other forms of identification numbers will fall in the same trap as PAN Cards as well as Voter Id Cards

·         Bio-Metrics will eliminate the possibility of fakes and duplicates to a large extent which is a large part of corruption in PDS. While Bio-Metrics cannot eliminate many human corrupt practices, yet we should at least appreciate the efficiency and corrections it will bring in the system by reducing systemic corruption throughout the PDS supply chain

·         While Bio-Metric technologies are still maturing but over time they will only improve as is the case with any new technology. More importantly, the world is moving towards bio-metrics with all air travelers being subject to some form of bio-metric or the other. ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) has recommended bio-metric identification.

·         The US senate is also considering the use of bio-metric identification with 2 senators presenting a report to the US Congress and to the OObama administration. The proposal is being viewed favorably. (Refer http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20000758-38.html)

·         The pilot projects for UID in Chattisgarh has been a success. Additionally, technical testing has been done using about 60,000 persons across three states and predominantly rural demographic regions.The PoC were done in AP, Karnataka and Bihar. The impact of the chattisgarh experience is given below

·         In 2008-09, the advocacy group, Right to Food campaign, found that 13 million BPL families were getting their full quota of foodgrain. No more than a million fakes were unearthed, as opposed to more than eight million previously, said Samir Garg, an adviser to the commissioners of the Supreme Court in a Right to Food case. In two years, the percentage of satisfied BPL cardholders has gone from four million to nine million people, according to the same survey

The Negatives associated with Bio-Metric based UID

·         The Bio-Metric technology has never been implemented at such a scale which presents a risk to the feasibility and performance of the system

·         But the Pilot has been successful and the Chattisgarh experience iis being extended to other states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc.

·         Bio-Metric information is very personal and can be easily misused by an authoritarian regime in the future

·         This can be prevented by giving control of personal information to the citizen by means of a PIN etc.

·         A central database with such sensitive information will be the target of enemies and will be a constant National Security threat

·         The UID database will not send any sensitive information online but just a Yes/No response which will limit vulnerability plus access to database only on an encrypted network can address the security issues. Even Italy has a National Id central database

·         The cost - benefit analysis has not been undertaken

·         But a simple analysis that if UID succeeds in getting 80% of Indian population under financial inclusion alone or provide correct entitlements to 1 billion Indians then the cost of every UID will be less than Rs 400/Indian

·         Infrastructure bottle-necks in remote areas

·         The UID database can be accessed in both online and offline mode and even if electricity is an issue then the authentication can happen over a mobile phone. This is already applied in PDS in Tamil Nadu

Assessment: A universal national identification is a must for India to support e-governance initiatives in the future and to get 360 degree view of a citizen. While bio - Metric based UID is a costly technology, it is the way forward as the most assurable way to establish identity where even census data has error percentages between 10-15%, translating to 12 to 17 million people!! In case Bio-Metrics does not attain public trust then an electronic UID option can be explored which serves the same purposes at half the cost, lesser privacy issues but more susceptible to tampering. To gain public trust UID and other government agencies should do a mass awareness campaign and try and build a consensus around the bio-metric issue and if unable to then drop the bio-metrics from UID and proceed electronically.