The Indian biometric project is not unique in its aims nor scope to uniquely identify its population, simply the technology used to generate an ID.
In the U.S. we have SSNs (social security numbers) and driver's licences. India is rolling out a 21st century answer to the problem of uniquely identifying its population with technology to minimise the probability of false, duplicate, or un-recoverable identities being created.
The technology gives the Indian government the ability to "track" its citizens no further than the American government can "track" hers through their SSN-linked bank accounts, cell phones, and government office activity. In a nut shell, the technology hashes an individual's iris and fingerprints into an ID, allowing for the ID to be easily verified in a de-centralised manner. In contrast, verifying a U.S. ID requires patching in to a centralised database.
Can an iris scan and fingerprint be faked? Of course. But I'm not sure who's arguing for the security of U.S. identity cards given that a stroll through Greenwich Village will afford me multiple solicitations for fake IDs.
Ignore even the problems of having a democracy where you don't know who your citizens are nor if nor how many times they've voted and think about how difficult it would be for an individual with no verifiable identity to enter into a long-term contract. Would you give him a mortgage? Or a loan to plant his fields? Knowing well that if he doesn't feel like paying you back he can change the name he goes by and you won't know the wiser? On the other side, if you're a government official who knows nobody knows how many people are in your district, wouldn't you feel less comfortable embezzling funds from intended recipients if they had a way of proving they never received their handout?
Am I the only one who is wondering how this comment ended up on top of this discussion?
The argument seems highly problematic. How far is a government allowed to go "to minimise the probability of false, duplicate, or un-recoverable identities". Let us pretend for a moment, that these are indeed core issues, that justify a billion dollar project.
If a government is allowed to intrude personal freedom just because the technology is there, why don't we make caring a gps tracking device mandatory for everyone leaving their registered residence. I mean, it is keeping the streets save, right? What gives a government the right to demand from someone fingerprints and iris scans, but not demand the GPS tracking or mandatory DNA samples of every citizen.
If we go on and just lament that this is just how it is and government has to keep the streets clean, these steps are consequential. After all a few decades ago nobody cared about fingerprints, and it was purely some crime-fighting technique. And so are DNA samples and monitoring anklets today.
U.S.'s tracing abilities given in the example based bank accounts or cell phones are voluntary, i.e. I can take a bag of cash and a throw away phone and government agencies would have to put substantial manpower into keeping track of my actions. With the iris scan, all they need to do is have a high resolution camera installed at the front of the store and they know where I spend that money.
The Indian government isn't collecting biometrics for fun. Every government, particularly democracies and those with social spending, need to know (a) who is in their country, and, (b) said individuals can reliably prove their identity. Instead of filing forms and pictures in a centralised database the Indian government has opted to generate unique IDs hashed from biometrics.
"What gives a government the right to demand from someone fingerprints and iris scans, but not demand the GPS tracking or mandatory DNA samples of every citizen."
Slippery slope fallacy. By this logic any potential for data collection is totalitarian. Note that to gain U.S. residency (or, for that matter, work at a U.S. financial institution) I had to give my fingerprints to the FBI.
"With the iris scan, all they need to do is have a high resolution camera"
Facial recognition technology would be easier, cheaper, and as technologically inaccessible as planting high resolution cameras looking at peoples' irises everywhere.
What is the relationship between the level of reliability and the ability to provide democratic government and social support? Obviously democracy does not demand 100% reliable identification, if only because many countries with governments based on democratic principles do not require 100% reliable proof of identify in order to vote, participate in government, etc.
(Nor am I suggesting that you think it's 100% - this is a rhetorical point only.)
Historically, the case of Clarence Henry Willcock in the UK is relevant. The National Registration Act 1939 re-introduced compulsory identification cards. The practice extended after the war ended. In 1950, Willcock refused to present his card, saying "I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing". While the courts upheld the decision and fine, public opinion was against that level of identity checking, and the policy was scrapped in 1952. In part too because of the cost.
So we have the case of a democratic system, with social care programs, which seemingly decreased their ability to identify people reliably.
Denmark is another example of a country, widely accepted as having both a democratic system and high social services, which doesn't have a highly reliable identity system.
So it does not seem that what you are saying is essentially true, and it is possible for a democratic government to have high social support systems without having a reliable method to prove their identity - at least, no more reliable than we had 100 years ago.
Reliably proving your identity becomes very important in India due to the vastness of the population and the number of subsidies earmarked for the under-privileged. Subsidies aside, reliably identifying someone guarantees their right to suffrage. Umpteen columns of newsprint are devoted each election year to voter fraud - people go to their designated election office to cast their vote but are turned away because they have "already voted". Having a reliable way to identify an individual will reduce the occurrence of these activities, if not totally eliminate them.
I have railed about the corruption in India in earlier posts and comments. That the government has green-lighted a project that leverages India's strength in IT to actually help its citizens is a departure from the norm, and is worth lauding. It remains to be seen if this will actually be implemented once the current government's term runs out.
I was speaking to the broad generalization of JumpCrisscross who said that "Every government" needs to do this, for the sake of good democracy and social services. I disputed that broad generalization. Nothing I wrote should be construed to apply specifically for or against India.
As to voter fraud, of that I know only about the US. There is a handful of voter fraud in the US, and almost no in-person voter fraud at all[1]. What fraud there is is mostly via the absentee ballot. We had a long history of election fraud and vote rigging in the US, but little of that was due to the inability to reliably prove one's identity.
([1] When you vote, you sign your name to a registry, which is publicly reviewable. This biometric identifier is sufficient to detect, after the fact, if there is significant in-person fraud. This has not been demonstrated, despite a strong desire by some to show that it exists.)
Denmark has a national personal identification number [1] and a reliable land registry system. The UK has had the latter in modern history. A democracy with social welfare programmes could theoretically exist without a reliable identification system, but one would expect that to lower systemic efficiency and barriers to fraudn and corruption.
The nut of my argument is that the Indian system is not substantially more instrusive than photograph + address based systems used in the developed world. Hence, the emotional backlash against the Indian project should not be held independently from identification programmes around the world.
That link says "SIDEN KAN IKKE FINDES" - "the page cannot be found."
Yes, Denmark has a personal number. What are the biometrics tying that number to the person? It's a signature.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_document#Denmark . "Denmark is one of few EU countries that currently do not issue national identity cards...", "National Health Insurance Card ... has no photo of the holder", "Danish drivers' licenses and passports are the only identity cards issued by the government containing both the personal identification number and a photo" but foreigners resident in the country who don't have driving skills (but notably are entitled to the social care system) can't get either one.
Then look for images of a Sundhedskort and you'll see there's only space for a signature on the back. No chip, no photo, nothing else.
Again my question to you is, what additional level of assurance do we need in order to have and maintain a democratic form of government with a strong social care system? I assert that signatures - which are a form of biometrics - and perhaps an identification number are more than sufficient for most countries.
(I again say that I know little about the situation in India. It may be that my views are only applicable to certain countries.)
Take voting as the main point. If you need to present stronger proof of the right to vote in order to vote, then what form would that be? An identity card? Then what happens if you've lost the card, or it was stolen or confiscated - have you lost the right to vote in a given election? What if you are unable to provide the needed documents to establish that stronger evidence, as is the problem of Viviette Applewhite, Wilola Lee, Grover Freeland, and others in Pennsylvania? Or should we use fingerprint and/or retina biometrics as in the linked article on India?
How much fraud and distrust in the voting system will the extra evidence remove, and what is the financial cost? Isn't existing fraud rather small, and less than to common-place problems during voting, like http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/2004... where votes were lost due to missing information about machine limitations? "Counting Votes 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness" reports that "More than 300 voting machine problems were reported to election protection hotlines during the 2010 mid-term elections, and more than 1800 were reported during the 2008 general election."
I quite frankly don't see our democratic principles on shaky ground, in need of stronger assurances of citizen identification in order to stabilize it. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Please clarify how reliable government-issued ID impacts personal freedom. You're making an awfully big leap here.
This argument seems to be based on an assumption of the right to anonymously take out loans, make bank transactions, and conduct business with the government. That right simply doesn't exist. People don't have a right to passable fake ID either, which is all this system really prevents.
Requiring ID for activities that shouldn't require it (prepaid cell phones, flight, all electronic forms of US dollars) is an invasion of privacy. Having more secure ID for activities that do isn't.
>Please clarify how reliable government-issued ID impacts personal freedom. You're making an awfully big leap here.
Is he? It is obvious that the government amassing all the more data for it's citizens impacts personal freedom, from privacy, to dissident control, to squashing protest movements etc etc.
People make the assumptions that current governments are the be all end all, and something like a mass protest moment and/or revolution will never again be necessary to change them. Even if that was true for the US, how about in places like India or thinly-veiled dictatorships all around the world?
>This argument seems to be based on an assumption of the right to anonymously take out loans, make bank transactions, and conduct business with the government. That right simply doesn't exist.
No right "exists" (in nature). Rights are not god-given, they are what the citizens of a country can demand of their government and what the political forces in play can negotiate for them. The right to anonymously make whatever transactions is as valid as any other right if it's fought for and won. And a few decades ago, before prevalent credit cards, it was not a right someone would defend, it was what everybody assumed to be the normal situation, unlike nowadays where almost all financial transactions are tracked and catalogued.
> It is obvious that the government amassing all the more data for it's citizens impacts personal freedom, from privacy, to dissident control, to squashing protest movements etc etc.
It may be obvious to you, but that's a pretty handwavy dismissal. Once again, please explain how a government knowing biographical/demographical information about its population impacts personal freedom (or more importantly, how reliable identification impacts personal freedom in a way that unreliable identification does not).
>And a few decades ago, before prevalent credit cards, it was not a right someone would defend, it was what everybody assumed to be the normal situation, unlike nowadays where almost all financial transactions are tracked and catalogued.
Tracking and cataloging financial transactions is not just an integral function of a bank, it's the definition of a bank. The term "bank account" long predates credit cards, and for a reason: banks keep track of the money you've put in and taken out, and what they've done with that money inbetween.
Old school, small town banks identified people by gasp facial recognition; it's just that their facial recognition happened to be manual. And if the bank manager didn't know your family, you were probably out of luck. Reliable government-issued identification made credit available to people who don't have "roots" in any particular community.
It is never and was never good business to make a loan to someone (accept a "promise to pay") without a means of extracting that "promise to pay" should the debtor choose to break it. If you're going to make the outlandish claim that one could anonymously take out a loan before the advent of the database, you're going to need to prove it.
>It may be obvious to you, but that's a pretty handwavy dismissal. Once again, please explain how a government knowing biographical/demographical information about its population impacts personal freedom
Once again? It has been explained in extenso by history. Every oppressive regime or bureaucracy works by gathering biographical/demographical information about people. Ask senator McCarthy or J.E. Hoover.
If you think you're safe because you're an ordinary citizen, then you might be right --it's not about ho-hum, average Joes. It's about people that are agents of change, from MLK to union leaders, to gay rights activists, and what have you. Heck, even John Lennon, a mere singer, had a huge FBI file. Those are used to track their moves and in many cases entrap them.
Even an improvement in the way the government tracks crime impacts personal freedom. An example: imagine drug laws being able to be enforced 100% and with perfect tracking of individuals. Half the population would be in jail, including perfectly functional teens and adults. No "stoner rock" for you, no sixties hippie communes, Cheech and Chong or Timothy Leary. Not even Henry Miller, Velvet Underground and of course no Grateful Dead. Heck, even a certain Jobs could have ended up in some jailhouse, not to mention most CEOs with their cocaine habits.
(or more importantly, how reliable identification impacts personal freedom in a way that unreliable identification does not).
Reliable identification means the government has the (potential) power to know where everybody is, all the time. Do I really have to explain the consequences of this? Your whereabouts used to be considered parts of your PRIVACY --in fact for the police to follow you around and/or wiretap you required a court order.
>Tracking and cataloging financial transactions is not just an integral function of a bank, it's the definition of a bank. The term "bank account" long predates credit cards, and for a reason: banks keep track of the money you've put in and taken out, and what they've done with that money inbetween.
We're not taking about them "keeping track of the money you've put in and taken out, and what they've done with that money inbetween" --rather, we're discussing about them keeping track of what YOU HAVE done with that money, which is something else altogether. My bank has no reason to know I bought a XXL-Vibrator 3000 or that I like to read Firefly fan finction.
>Old school, small town banks identified people by gasp facial recognition; it's just that their facial recognition happened to be manual.
The same thing can have very different consequences once it can be automated and obtain far more reach and capability. Think papyrus vs the printing press. So, no, the fact that "facial recognition" was also used in small towns is not the same as the ability to real-time track, index, catalogue and store people and their movements nation-wide.
>Every oppressive regime or bureaucracy works by gathering biographical/demographical information about people. Ask senator McCarthy or J.E. Hoover.
McCarthy's information was patently false, and J.E. Hoover went far, far beyond biographical data. There is a difference between your address and the conversations that take place inside it.
>imagine drug laws being able to be enforced 100% and with perfect tracking of individuals.
This has nothing to do with ID. I can only assume you're talking about mandatory drug testing, which is driven primarily by the social-conservative leadership of businesses rather than government (except when the GOP wins mandatory drug testing in order to receive welfare). The contents of one's bloodstream are and should continue to be private. Whether this information is in distributed or centralized storage isn't relevant; it should never be collected in the first place.
>It's about people that are agents of change, from MLK to union leaders, to gay rights activists, and what have you. Heck, even John Lennon, a mere singer, had a huge FBI file. Those are used to track their moves and in many cases entrap them.
The FBI would have surveilled prominent civil rights activists whether or not they carried ID cards. Dr. King's demographic information was on the front pages of newspapers. COINETELPRO et al violated civil liberties by listening to private conversations and making death threats. Reading the paper and knowing King's name and face wasn't a violation of privacy; bugging his hotel rooms was.
Also, take a look at his FBI file sometime, if you haven't already. Included are dozens of letters from citizens to the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, thanking and congratulating the Bureau for pursuing what they considered a dangerous and evil man. Good old red-blooded "law and order" American conservatism was responsible for surveillance of activists; their drivers licenses had little to do with it.
>--rather, we're discussing about them keeping track of what YOU HAVE done with that money, which is something else altogether. My bank has no reason to know I bought a XXL-Vibrator 3000 or that I like to read Firefly fan finction.
This particular "tracking" was brought on entirely by the free market. Credit cards are held by willing consumers and accepted by willing merchants. Bitcoin presents a fascinating opportunity to escape this disadvantage of credit cards.
That doesn't change the fact that I want the power to securely prove my identity.
Nobody is talking about requiring biometric identification at the bookstore, and I'd be just as opposed to that as you. India is giving its citizens the ability to prove their identities to the government should they choose to seek government assistance. Unless the Indian government should hand out money to whoever asks for it, as many times as they ask for it?
Indian govt, like any other, provides a lot of subsidy to the needed. They have some programs and funds to do this. However, most of the funds don't reach people who need them. Why - too many middlemen, corruption, etc. Through this program they are trying to cut the middlemen or at least hoping to. Most other forms of ids can be faked, these possible in Bond movies but difficult in India.
1) never forget Indian ingenuity to break systems. Jugaad is the proper term.
2) the data itself is being faked already. In this thread there is a first hand account of people going to villages and making duplicate UID cards. 2 separate cards for each hand.
3) data has already been lost and stolen
4)overlaps. The current system already has some thing like 1 million to .1 million overlaps from one set of calculations I recall. On top of that you have overlap everytime a new generation gets added to the database.
Do you want to be the person with a faulty card in india? Do you want to see what happens to poor people who have no access to the net?
I think our HN conspiracy theorists have missed the point by a bit. Lets just put it this way, India still has a ton of illiterate people. The only way that they can usually sign documents/enter into contracts is by placing their (inked) fingerprints on documents.
There is no unified ID system in India so far. There is no unique ID card that each citizen can carry. This is a 21st century solution to a problem that has existed for a long time.
You know how you open a bank account in India ?
- Walk into the bank
- Fill up a form
- Provide a photograph
- Provide a proof of ID (voter's ID, passport, etc.)
- Provide a proof of address (this can be a voter's ID, utility bill, etc. - has to be different from the one above..)
Here's where stuff starts to get real interesting. You can't get a voter's ID without a proof of address (that can be a bank statement, utility bill, etc.) - the same contraints apply to the others. So you can't get a proof of address without a proof of address. See where this is going ? (or isn't :P)
The lack of a unified ID system in India is a massive problem. An Iris Scan + Fingerprints are the only way to really ensure that a person is who they are supposed to be. (many burn victims do not have fingerprints, many blind people may not have irises)
Personally, I welcome the opportunity to be able to open a bank account/do other administrative shit with just one ID card. I've had enough with all the extra nonsensical documentation that every establishment requires.
I certainly see the privacy/trackability downside to it. But lets be honest. I've been to the US and Europe. Their respective governments have my fingerprints/iris scans (needed for visas), it's not really a big deal if the Indian government has them too. The global tracking of populations ship has already sailed. India's just getting on the bandwagon as far as that is concerned.
Wait, so a PAN card, A ration card, license, passport, voters ID card are insufficient options?.
I know someone personally who got her passport soon after marrying, moving to her in laws place and having no voters id, valid passport, or any other proof of residence.
It was done logically, by showIng that she was married. The person she was married to lived at x location. And finally that x location was the residence of her in laws.
Further the requirements for address proof are governmental clauses. Those will never go away, even with a UID.
And this is the same govt that ensures people sign their names and provide photo ID every time you use a cyber cafe, and every time you visit a hotel.
The same people who said that a UID wouldn't. E compulsory to avail of govt services. Then made it compulsory if you want to get gas.
Meta: I've followed this topic since inception, years ago. Since then I've found that the defenders of this service are uniform in their thinking, they all believe that the benefits are invaluable and the costs overplayed or irrelevant in the face of the gains.
Edit: just because other people are doing it isn't good enough a reason to follow suit
I think you missed a point there. Maybe your perspective is one of having a fixed residence for all of your life. Unfortunately, my life didn't progress that way and every time I move to a new place I have to go through the same rigmarole all over again.
I can assure you that I'm not alone in this. I don't see why a UID can't pave the way for further changes in government clauses.
Furthermore, I know of quite a few other countries where their ID cards help them do tons of things that in India are neigh impossible without further documentation.
As for cyber cafes and hotels requiring IDs - hotels everywhere require IDs for the most part and the cyber cafe bullshit is because of idiotic govt. representatives not understanding the whole terrorism through email communications bit.
I find it quite ridiculous that India doesn't have any sort of unified ID system so far. I've been traveling for the past one year and have been through several countries, almost all of which have their respective ID systems. These IDs help them open bank accounts, get credit cards, cross borders, and do much more.
Well that's optimism, and it is naive. The govt clauses for residence proof are ostensibly to track Terror. To know where a user of a suspected phone number lives, or who used which cyber cafe.
Further you are in a minority, but your needs are servable. Further your needs and requirements are completely and utterly contravening the original purpose the system was sold under.
The original was supposed to be to help the poor avail of public services.
Your use cases are all servable by the private sector. Hardly the reason for yet another ID system.
Especially when your primary aim of not having recursive paper work is un touched. So how is this better?
How exactly are getting public healthcare, education, or crossing borders servable by the private sector ? Replacing multiple authentication vectors (voters ID, driving license, etc.) by a single acceptable ID is certainly a step towards simplicity that I welcome.
All the IDs that you mentioned in your initial reply are useless or unavailable in many cases.
PAN - non tax payers don't have them
Driving License - people who don't drive don't have them
Ration card - people who don't take ration don't have them
Passport - people who don't travel dont have them
Voters ID - people who don't live in the jurisdiction of their permanent residences don't have them
I don't see how you drew the conclusion that I am in a minority with small numbers. With 1.2 billion people there are plenty of Indians living and working across state borders, etc. All of the defense/government employees to start with..
Hey hey, its your posts which started with talking about how life was tough to get a bank account for example.
> " to be able to open a bank account/do other administrative shit with just one ID card."
Where did getting public healthcare, education or crossing borders come up? For those I would point out other known failings. Come now, that's nearly a bait and switch.
In your second response you say:
" Maybe your perspective is one of having a fixed residence for all of your life. Unfortunately, my life didn't progress that way and every time I move to a new place I have to go through the same rigmarole all over again."
So perhaps if you aren't referring to bank accounts you may mean education which you refer to. Thats possible with a transfer certificate and transcripts, and at most, a birth certificate. Having personally navigated one of the worst possible categories of transfers into the Indian education system, I can say that Identity, was never an issue. Sloth, confounding rules, paperwork were greater transgressors.
Now regards your other points. Having several family members in defense, and the government ID is not an issue for them. As far as I know the Def. forces have their own ways of ensuring proof of residence. I can try and check up to confirm if need be.
Regarding the list of ID systems you provided.
PAN: Non tax payers dont have them. But Tax payers do. And given the recent conversions in Tax policy, thats a larger portion of the population. But that still ignroes -
Ration Card: This is extremely common. From discussions with hired help on their situation, they are nearly religious in the way they value the card and make sure they have one. And for a more universal measure of its prevalence, do note that its one of the first and most common things given to people to regularize slums and shanties. So for the worse off sections of society its extremely prevalent.
And if THAT doesn't work: There are Voter ID cards which fill the void for people who don't travel.
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These are issues which are not tech issues, but in reality are people problems. We can never remove the need for discipline, civic sense, and standards in service delivery.
Other countries have managed without retina scanners, or finger print IDs of all their citizens. Saying that we are a special case where we need tech to solve our problems is a red herring. Its also a rejection of responsibility and the burden we must carry. There is no quick fix for this.
There is also a major reason why all those countries which did conceive of using a UID system like ours, balked and fled.
If having the finger prints of every citizen doesn't bother you, then we really can't see eye to eye.
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It seems you are mostly troubled by the paper work, in particular, for proof of residence.
That's not something the UID system will ever solve. The Govt has no intention of ever rolling back those clauses. The political calculus and players are harshly inimical at worst to the idea, and couldn't care less if they tried, at best.
UID or not, you will always need to provide proof that you live there.
The only thing the UID will do is become an umbrella number which will help track where you stay, which Cafe's you use and when, what your taxes are and more. All in the name of helping people suffering from middle men and not being able to get their ration.
There is already constant feature creep - the ideal behind this was a way to help the poorer of us get access to resources and help, without the middle man. It is written in its founding document that no services will be denied due to lack of a UID.
Recently the MP govt. stated that a UID card is compulsory to avail of piped gas. You have good reason to trust your govt. I assume.
Well my response wasn't really a blog post about why I want the UID system. It was simply an example of where it might be useful. I don't see how that's a bait and switch, it seems like you're more concerned about what I didn't say than what I did say in my post.
I come from a defense background, so lets just put that issue to rest right there. Are you bothered that I didn't say that in my first/second/third post either ?
It looks like you are plainly against the UID system, maybe that's coming out of your frustration of needing one for a gas pipeline, or maybe it's borne out of something else.
I acknowledge all your points about how the UID won't help in many situations. But the one thing it surely will enable is simplicity of documentation, and like I said before, I certainly welcome that.
There is a definite problem in India with 'proving who you say you are' - I hope the UID system will solve that to a certain extent.
What countries are you talking about ? Brazil, Chile, UAE, countries in the European Union, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, etc. all have UID systems in place. These tie in their ID, tax info, etc. into a single card. I've seen first hand how their IDs help them go through life and get out of the documentation hell that we suffer from in India.
In every response you are suggesting alternatives (hey, I could give my driving license for that, or there I could give my ration card, or wait in that other place they might accept my voter ID) to a UID system. The idea of documentation simplification is that you need just one ID for all of those things. (education, health, banks, etc.) Not only is it easier for the person presenting the ID, but it reduces the back end processing required for the service provider. When we talk of numbers as large as 1 billion, those inefficiencies stack up pretty quick.
You can go on talking about the failings of each scenario but the fact is that many Indians have no IDs (my grandfather didn't have any legit ID until he was 92, when we applied for a passport for him to go to Egypt). Maybe your domestic help have ration cards but please don't project your limited experience onto everyone else, that hardly makes for a valid argument.
Not to mention the authenticity of people's ration cards, voter's IDs, driving licenses, birth certificates, transcripts, transfer certificates, etc. That's a whole can of worms in itself.
It appears that you're afraid that our government will bungle up the whole initiative. Well, that of course is common in India and a risk with almost any initiative. Still, that's not a reason to not take initiatives in the first place.
Also, remember the society of dead people? People who were declared legally dead (often by relatives) and were unable to prove their existence to the government?
Didn't even make it through the fist paragraph before I hit this gem
A small group of entrepreneurs within the government...
IMO says a lot about the biases of the reporter and probably the site as well. Franklin may be frequently misquoted (as pointed out by another commenter here), but the liberty/security trade-off is real. Personally I tend to err on the side of liberty idealism. It's clear there are plenty of interests pulling for the other side.
> One area in desperate need of disruption is the delivery of government services.
Seeing disruptive describe a bureaucratic process is tickling.
> Over time, systematic corruption and mismanagement have bred bad data, false information and outright fraud ... Poor laborers and migrant workers, in particular, are forced to travel far from their homes to collect their wages and benefits, having to dole out bribes to predatory middlemen along the way.
So now we're empowering a corrupt monopoly with biometric intelligence on every citizen in the country. What could possibly go wrong..
This gets dangerously close to Minority Report [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film) ] type scenario where political dissidents or a minority group, can be denied all services by a corrupt official.
Fingerprint scanners can be defeated by a determined person. Retinal scanners will probably be defeated in the next 5-10 years. The government will claim "The retinal scanner authentication database is never wrong" until they are proven wrong.
I'm not going to be an alarmist and say "ID cards lead to totalitarian states".
However, it's interesting how a number of totalitarian states have used information about their citizens to control them. After the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam, everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) had to fill out forms that described the various roles they and their families had over their lifetime. Kids would fill out these forms at schools. Did your father work for the Americans? Well great, he can no longer get a job and his kids can no longer go to college (yes, I'm simplifying what actually happened).
You didn't have to torture, throw in prison or exile the majority of your political opponents, you simply denied the means the carry out everyday tasks (sending kids to school, finding a job, getting enough food to eat, etc). It's really ingenious if you think about it. Someone who fights everyday to get the basic necessities of life usually doesn't have much time to oppose you politically.
Retinal scanners will probably be defeated in the next 5-10 years.
I thought about this and wondered if you could make a hologram of the inverse of your retina, combined with the retina you want to have, on a contact lens.
That is what I was thinking. A contact lens with the right reflective hologram to look like a retina. Most retina scanners don't have insanely high resolution (usually less than 1 Megapixel)
take a look at this one,i can already see where they are going.they will en-roll everyone or force everyone to en-roll so that big corporates can spy on us/profile us .. man this is sad
I think most of the industrialized world will go through this inevitably, but it's important to remember that liberty is a long term strategy that requires education and diligence. In a way, India is about to prove why biometric data on every citizen is a bad idea. We need to see how such data can be abused to fully understand how dangerous such data is in the wrong hands. Sure tptacek might come on down and tell us how such regulation should be thanked, but we're about to witness a controlled experiment that proves the contrary. My money is on a more controlled extortion apparatus ;)
This will allow massive credit expansion in India, as being trackable means lending companies can more easily identify people. Same thing has happened in the Philippines over the last 10 years, easy credit has exploded.
The "ration card" is another, nearly universal, identifying document in India which serves another purpose: this card is mandatory if its owner wants to get grocery at affordable (I hope!) rates from the government's Public Distribution System.
Village loan sharks love to take this card as security for their cut-throat loans to the poor, because they know that its owner will try their level best to not jeopardize their access to this card: no card means the kids starve. Since the ration card is issued by the government, it is (well neigh) impossible for their clients to get a duplicate issued, as well.
This new thing will probably end up as one more piece of paper/plastic for the poor to spend their life redeeming from the shylocks.
The idea is to solve exactly what you are describing (whether the execution actually matches it or not is a separate matter).
The 'ration card' provides both, a way to check identity and a way to keep track of rations disbursed.
By separating out identity part and attaching it to your biometric data, at least theoretically, if someone holds your ID card hostage, you can go to the issuing authority, and get another one issued, because you can prove your identity without any form of paper.
There will be huge problems with implementing this, as any large system tends to have. But once the dust settles, it should make life much more convenient for the poor and everyone else.
Also previously there were cases where ration cards were applied and approved (by middle men) for people who did not even apply for one. The middle men took the subsidized goods and sold it in the market at higher rates. Even if with the new system the middle man can do the same stuff, but it gets difficult as you have to prove the identity.
And this is a good development? Institutionalized credit is merely a market-based mechanism for the gradual erosion of freedom. It brings economic gain in the short term, as people are able to step outside the prejudices restricting their informal local credit. However for the long term, just take a look at the debt treadmill most everyone in the US is on.
I'm not sure whether OP thinks this is a good thing or not, but I certainly hope not. Being universally trackable by government is one of the most evil things I can think of right now. Once this starts, we know what's coming in a few years - an RFID in every person (or similar, possibly more advanced technology). Say goodbye to individual freedom.
I'd thought about elaborating to head off this comment.
This is true when credit first arrives on the scene. People looking for loans are thinking in terms of paying the money back, and the benefit they'll have from temporary use of the money. Over time, this extra money drives prices up (especially with collateralized loans), and causes credit to be increasingly necessary to even afford the items in question. People then think in terms of economic rent, with little intention of paying back the principle. (See: US housing market).
It's still true that in every instance, one ultimately chooses to borrow the money. It's just that it becomes impossible to lead a 'normal life' without doing so.
As the Guardian article linked in the Mises article points out:
Grameen's tactics suffer from five fatal assumptions.
First is the idea that poor should be self-employed rather than work for wages. That is contrary to the whole history of successful economic development.
Second is the idea that loans are the main financial service needed by the poor, whereas they really need savings and insurance.
Third is the idea that credit is what builds enterprise, whereas the truth is that entrepreneurship and management are more important.
Fourth is the idea that the non-poor don't need credit, whereas the truth is revealed in market-based banking: higher incomes can handle higher debt.
Fifth is the idea that microcredit institutions can become self-sustaining, whereas all experience shows that new enterprises in poor areas that are built on credit alone rarely emerge from dependency.
Sure, everyone "ultimately chooses" to borrow the money, just as in the most egregious loansharking operation, and they end up living under threats of broken legs after being sucked in. Only now, 1.2 billion people will be trackable forever by Big Legbreaker.
I am serious about Grameen being one of the prime movers here.
From their site:
By 2013, with the help of our commercial partners and philanthropists that support our work, we envision that, 100 million poor people in India will have access to a full range of financial services and technologies that will progress them out of poverty.
India is home to one-third of the world’s poor, who make up 42 percent of the more than 1 billion Indian people.
Out of India's population, 76 percent — 800 million people — live below the poverty line of $2.50 a day.
About 87 percent of poor rural farmers still do not have access to formal credit. Although Indian MFIs reach an impressive 15 million borrowers, total demand estimates are more than 90 million poor.
In line with its commitment to help alleviate poverty, Grameen Foundation established Grameen Foundation India (GFI) in 2010 as a wholly owned subsidiary.
For who?
The people living on 20 rs a day? Or near the poverty line?
Well that's not how it's being used.
For the middle class, that system is in place already. Heck credit growth is pretty aggressive already, if anything steps are being taken to reduce its growth.
So that's an overall goal which is being solved elsewhere and doesn't need A terribly designed system to control identity.
And you trust the govt with it?
Currently it's been made compulsory to own one of these to get gas, in one state.
This is after the charter stated that no service would be made such that it required per ownership of such a card.
If I'm a poor and illiterate in India, I neither know what special programs or subsidies the government has for me (I'm illiterate and the news does not reach me).
The middle men already has forged my identities and the amount that the Government sent me is already shared by them in the middle.
This is what the government is trying to solve. To make sure that what is being sent is received by the correct person.
It may not solve it entirely. But at the very least it will make it difficult for the middle men to forge the identities now. Or at the worst case, the middle men will have to share a portion of what they receive with the end user (the poor me).
When you look at it from a first world perspective, then your freedom and government control seems to be the main concern.
But when you have had no food for the last week and you don't have your own house and have no way to feed your family, then the freedom to shout against my government is my last priority.
But that's not what it's being used for. UID compulsory for gas? UID being used for all sorts Of things other than assistance to the poor.
UID data being compromised already - first hand account in this thread.
Constant feature creep. Every single person who has such positive hopes needs to take a good long look at its real implementation, it's reall failings and it's drawbacks. Without looking at potential possible positives.
Cooking gas is heavily subsidized in India. Maybe not many poor are able to afford it, but still the lower middle class rely on this subsidized gas. And this is one way the government can try to reduce the misuse. I'm not saying it will completely remove the misuse. But any reduction is good for the society.
All of these are cost/benefits. If the cost is giving extremely powerful abilities to an entity which finds its best interests in playing communal games to score points in its vote base, then the lesser of two evils is corruption.
Any reduction is not good for society when it comes with huge costs.
The Indian people do not passively wait for government permission to have a voice, they buy it every day with action and sometimes with their lives. Large areas of India have reduced or virtually non-existent government control thanks to the efforts of the Naxalites to free themselves from a government still mired in racist traditions and an economy shaping itself to the worst excesses of neoliberal capitalism.
If the poor have no food or homes it is because they have been taken from them by a greedy government and a brutal police force. They will reclaim their lives and achieve justice not through waiting for liberal reform or by surrendering further control to a government instituting bare-minimum programs in an attempt to appease away the inevitable, but through continued people's war.
I can understand the liberty v/s security implications, but I don't understand when people in the US feel they are better off in terms of liberty.
This is essentially SSN implemented in the 21st century. And you can't get a job, buy/rent a house, or get a bank account without an SSN
The fact that you can be anonymous in the U.S. and still live a life inside of regular society is a complete myth. And I think most people accept the fact that the SSN is in fact necessary.
India does not have any such system, instead of the SSN, they have ten different numbers attached to a person. All this does is make the ID part of it uniform.
The biometric part is not the focus here, the ID part is, which pretty much every developed country already has. The biometric part is just a means to get the ID part done better.
Just to reiterate, I understand the liberty v/s security implications, but americans have already given theirs up for security, so maybe that's just the price to pay of being a developed nation.
I've actually noticed that citizens of the US need to provide their SSN in a huge number of situations that I would never need to provide any kind of government identification.
The closest thing we have to an ID that every citizen has is an IRD number for the purposes of tax. You would give that to your bank and your employer so that they can pay tax on your behalf, but even that is optional. If you don't provide it then they will assume that you pay tax at the highest rate.
Compare to when I was staying a friends house in the US and heard him give his SSN to the phone company when he was troubleshooting his internet. I find it baffling that you would need a government issued ID number just to form a relationship with a phone company.
But the biometric part means that scanners/computers/systems can ID you with your consent and/or knowledge. At least with a SSN, you have to consent and give them it.
I guess with this: "The fact that you can be anonymous in the U.S. and still live a life inside of regular society is a complete myth."
True
" And I think most people accept the fact that the SSN is in fact necessary."
False.
"I understand the liberty v/s security implications, but americans have already given theirs up for security, so maybe that's just the price to pay of being a developed nation."
What??????
Good God man! Americans have made a HUGE number of EXTREMELY bad decisions, from insane foreign policy to eating so much crap we are dying from it, to bankrupting ourselves!
"just the price to pay of being a developed nation." NOT!!!!
Just total insane stupidity! Do not copy the U.S.!
Where are they giving up liberty. You have to look at the problems from an India perspective not a first world one. Personal identification is a solved problem here but in India lack of trust and lack of access prevents many people from gaining liberty. This system will allow a greater number of people to access government programs, education, and financial tools like bank accounts. That being said there needs to be some safe guards in place to prevent the police state scenarios that many here seem to be worried about.
Biometric security has always been a disaster which is why real projects using it almost never end up being realized. The article portrays it as if the reason India is the first to do this is because they are somehow uniquely able to take advantage of technology. The reality is that the reason they are the first is that everybody realized how flawed it is.
In terms of liberty - a biometric id is, by definition, an "involuntary" identity. It's something you're unable to change or refuse to yield, even if you choose to. A person with a non-biometric identity can freely destroy all forms of that identity and then they cannot be identified any more by it. They have the freedom to produce it when they wish to be identified, and to choose not to when they wish to remain anonymous. A biometric identity is a non "opt out" identity. It can never be changed or altered, and can be forcibly read by anybody with physical control over you. Hence there is a great loss of liberty in a biometric identity, and when you really think it through, almost no advantages that can't be obtained from a non-biometric identity.
I'm Indian, I've looked at it from an Indian perspective and plain logic tells me this is insane.
Heck leave alone our country men and their talent at finding loopholes or the corruption of our system.
When I know first hand that the debate internally amongst the world bank and nandan nilekani went from trying to tackle the privacy issues to "my role is to give every Indian a number" (second hand quote) my hair stands on end.
Not to mention that the system already creates duplicates and overlaps, which then compound which each subsequent generation.
Or the fact that we already have bad data from outsourcers who just jammed info into the system, or the fact that the laptops were stolen. I think we lost data recently too.
Given India's track record on surveillance, this can become a security nightmare for its populace. The chances of this data being misused by various detrimental interests are very real and is already happening. India need to be much more open and populace needs to be more educated before biometric identification can achieve positive outcome.
one example for how far our people can go with corruption., few days back the officials came to our village to issue these cards., they issued two cards for each (one for one hand, five finger prints are needed for one card) to claim the commission from government.
Wow. Govt chaps or outsourcers? Mind giving the village name? It would be useful if it could be converted into an rti request, or just simply for detailed knowledge on the types of scams one can expect.
What are the advantages of using this system over a normal passport? It seems like just another country trying to get a good reputation as a surveillance state :(
To the naysayers, it's a very bold move to empower impoverished and give them the ability to claim benefits...and not some anti freedom push. In any case I'm not living in India so I can't really comment, but again the situation is very interesting.
"it can also be used to offer hundreds of millions their greatest chance at inclusion and a prosperous life."
This would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.
The banks are SO well known for their unselfish altruism. After all, they have pretty much raped the first world, and indebted generations to come. How lucky the Indian masses are, to be the latest objects of their, uh, generosity ?
In the U.S. we have SSNs (social security numbers) and driver's licences. India is rolling out a 21st century answer to the problem of uniquely identifying its population with technology to minimise the probability of false, duplicate, or un-recoverable identities being created.
The technology gives the Indian government the ability to "track" its citizens no further than the American government can "track" hers through their SSN-linked bank accounts, cell phones, and government office activity. In a nut shell, the technology hashes an individual's iris and fingerprints into an ID, allowing for the ID to be easily verified in a de-centralised manner. In contrast, verifying a U.S. ID requires patching in to a centralised database.
Can an iris scan and fingerprint be faked? Of course. But I'm not sure who's arguing for the security of U.S. identity cards given that a stroll through Greenwich Village will afford me multiple solicitations for fake IDs.
Ignore even the problems of having a democracy where you don't know who your citizens are nor if nor how many times they've voted and think about how difficult it would be for an individual with no verifiable identity to enter into a long-term contract. Would you give him a mortgage? Or a loan to plant his fields? Knowing well that if he doesn't feel like paying you back he can change the name he goes by and you won't know the wiser? On the other side, if you're a government official who knows nobody knows how many people are in your district, wouldn't you feel less comfortable embezzling funds from intended recipients if they had a way of proving they never received their handout?