We are anonymous, we are legion

Making Aadhaar Mandatory: Gamechanger For Governance?

praskrishna — 2016-03-24T06:50:10Z

Why a programme that both the Congress and the BJP have hailed as transformational has divided Parliament this week? The Aadhaar Bill which was passed this week aims at facilitating government benefits and subsidies to citizens said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Yet it became a reason for the Rajya Sabha to raise key questions. On the panel - Chandan Mitra, Rajya Sabha MP, BJP; Ajoy Kumar, Spokesperson, Congress; Tathagat Sathapathy, Lok Sabha MP, Biju Janata Dal; Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Rajya Sabha MP; Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society; and Shekhar Gupta, Senior Journalist.

Video

Link to NDTV website

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-march-20-2016-making-aadhaar-mandatory-gamechanger-for-governance

How the government gains when private companies use Aadhaar

praskrishna — 2016-04-01T15:58:38Z

This blog post by M. Rajshekhar and Anumeha Yadav was published in Scroll.in on March 24, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Last week, Rajya Sabha made a last-ditch attempt to modify the contentious Aadhaar legislation introduced by the Modi government. Since the legislation was introduced as a Money Bill, the Upper House had no powers to amend it. It could only send back the bill with recommended amendments.

One of the clauses which Rajya Sabha wished to amend related to the use of the Aadhaar number, the 12-digit unique identification number assigned after the collection of an individual’s biometrics in the form of fingerprints and iris scans.

Clause 57 said that anyone, whether an individual or a public or private organisation, could use the Aadhaar number. Rajya Sabha voted to restrict the use of the number to the government. After all, the government had justified introducing Aadhaar legislation as a Money Bill by stating that it would be used for delivering government subsidies and benefits funded out of the Consolidated Fund of India. If the delivery of government welfare is the aim of Aadhaar, why should private companies be allowed to use it?

The Rajya Sabha recommended dropping clause 57 to limit the use of Aadhaar to government agencies. But the Lok Sabha rejected its recommendation, and cleared the Bill in its original form, paving the way for private companies to use Aadhaar.

Strikingly, however, well before the Bill was cleared, a private company started advertising its services as “India’s 1st Aadhaar based mobile app to verify your maid, driver, electrician, tutor, tenant and everyone else instantly”. In an article for Scroll.in, legal researcher Usha Ramanathan said, “A private company is advertising that it can use Aadhaar to collate information about citizens at a price. It says this openly, even as a case about the privacy of the information collected for the biometrics-linked government database is still pending in the Supreme Court.”

LinkedIn for plumbers

The company that owns the mobile app called TrustID believes it is not doing anything wrong.

Monika Chowdhry, who heads the marketing division of Swabhimaan Distribution Services, the company that created TrustID, defended the app, saying it offers the valuable service of verifying people's identities. “In our day to day life, we do a lot of transactions with people – like maids or plumbers. Till now, you would have to trust them on what they said about themselves and what others said about the quality of their work.” The company is solving that problem, she said. “We are saying ask the person for their Aadhaar number and name and we will immediately tell you if they are telling the truth or not,” Chowdhry said.

Chowdhry said that over time, the Aadhaar number of individuals will be used to create a private verified database of TrustIDs. “Our plan is to create a rating mechanism,” she said. Referring to the option for maid, plumbers and other service providers on the app, she added: “People like you and me, we have Linkedin and Naukri. What do these people have?”

How does the company use Aadhaar for verification and is there a reason to be concerned?

Aadhaar authentication

After you have logged into the TrustID app, you can choose from a dropdown menu of categories. You can send anyone's Aadhaar number, gender and name – or even biometrics – and the app claims it can verify their identity.

The app performs Aadhaar authentication – which means it matches an Aadhaar number with the information stored against that number in the servers of the Unique Identification Authority of India. At the time an individual enrols for an Aadhaar number, they disclose their name, gender, address and give biometric scans. This information is held in a database maintained by the UID authority.

One of the criticisms of Aadhaar has been that the database of millions of people could be misused in the absence of a privacy law in India. First, there is the question about whether the biometrics are secure. Second, there are risks that accompany the uncontrolled use of unique numbers.

In response, the proponents of Aadhaar have said that the data is encrypted and secure, and can be accessed only by the authority. Those wanting to authenticate – or match – the Aadhaar number cannot directly access the database. They can simply make requests to the authority which authenticates the number for them.

So far, it appeared that the authority was taking Aadhaar authentication requests solely from government agencies. For instance, to pay wages to workers of the rural employment guarantee programme.

But TrustID’s example showed that private companies too have been sending authentication requests to the authority. This is not entirely surprising for those who have followed the blueprint for Aadhaar as envisioned by Nandan Nilekani, its founder. In an interview in 2012, Nilekani spoke about creating a "thriving application system" using Aadhaar for both the public and private sector.

Chowdhary said Swabhimaan Distribution Services registered as an Aadhaar authentication agency in November 2015, and the app was launched in January 2016.

TrustID, or Swabhimaan, is not the only private company that has signed up as an authentication agency for Aadhaar. A quick Google search throws up the name of Alankit, which wants to “provide Aadhaar Enabled Services to its beneficiaries, clients and customers and can further verify the correctness of the Aadhaar numbers provided ” .

This shows the authority entered into agreements with private companies well before the Aadhaar law was passed in Parliament. The companies were running ahead of legislation in a space unbounded by law, and the UIDAI supported them in this.

It is unclear how many private companies were sending requests for Aadhaar authentication. Scroll's questions to Harish Agrawal, the deputy director general of Aadhaar's Authentication and Application Division, remained unanswered.

In an interview to Business Standard, ABP Pandey, the director general of the UIDAI, said, "Usually what happens is that first a law is passed and thereafter the institutions are built and operations start. Here it has happened the other way around. The operations – the enrolment – is almost complete. The organisation is also there and has been working under executive orders. Now everything has to be kind of retrofitted in to the acts and the regulations."

Why is this problematic?

For one, allowing private companies to use the Aadhaar number shows that the government’s stated aims of Aadhaar are misleading.

Both in the Supreme Court and in Parliament, the government has pushed for the use of Aadhaar as an instrument of welfare delivery. It justified passing Aadhaar legislation as a Money Bill by emphasising its importance to its welfare schemes. But as the case of Swabhimaan shows, Aadhaar's uses clearly go well beyond what the Bill's preamble describes as the “targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services, the expenditure for which is incurred from the Consolidated Fund of India.”

Two, biometrics and unique identification numbers are a qualitatively new form of private information. As such, they bring unknown risks. India does not have a privacy law, and a law defining the use of biometrics and unique numbers is yet to be created. Delhi-based lawyer Apar Gupta said, “Even the Aadhaar Bill is yet to be approved by the president. Its rules are yet to be drafted. There is not enough legal guidance on its use.”

Three, companies like Swabhimaan would be in a position to construct databases of their own. Take TrustID. When it starts retaining Aadhaar numbers, and adds ratings to them, it creates a database of its own, which amounts to creating profiles of people.

Here, as Ramanathan said, the analogy with the networking site LinkedIn doesn't work. “When I have an account on LinkedIn, I update my data,” she said. But the TrustID app generates profiles out of the ratings that others give. Even if a prospective employee shares his/her Aadhaar number, it does not amount to free consent since getting a job hinges on giving that number.

In the future, companies could use Aadhaar numbers in unknown ways, for instance, to combine multiple databases – banks, telecom companies, hospitals – to create detailed profiles of you and me that they can monetise. In effect, Aadhaar becomes a commercial instrument for private companies, and not just a mechanism for the delivery of government welfare.

Gains for the government

Sunil Abraham, the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, further explained the risks that arise when databases are combined. He cited the example of OCEAN, the system created by researchers at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology to raise privacy awareness. OCEAN used publicly available information held by the government (voter identity card, PAN card, driving licence) to access details about citizens in Delhi. This public data was combined with people's Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the aggregated results were visualised as a family tree which showed information extending to a person’s parents, siblings and spouse.

"If a company like TrustID tied up with OCEAN, it can create a very detailed profile of an individual," said Abraham. "To continue with the example of a job-seeker, if a employer uses TrustID to verify applicants' identity or profiles, the App may combine a database like OCEAN to track that you logged into Twitter at, say 2 am on most nights. It can profile you as someone who might not turn up at work on time in the morning."

Abraham pointed out that the government too stands to gain by allowing private companies to use Aadhaar for authentication. "Use of authentication by private companies will mean UIDAI can have information on authentications performed on you, or by you, over time in the private sphere as well, say during such a job search," he said. For instance, when TrustID runs a search for your prospective employers using your Aadhaar number, the government knows you have applied for a job at certain companies. "This is unnecessary involvement of the government, giving it access to information in an area that it should not have access to."

Over time, such Aadhaar authentication for private services in companies, hospitals, or hotels will "help the government gain granular data on citizens", he said.

Perhaps that explains why the government rushed the Aadhaar Bill through Parliament, allowing little time and room for public debate.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/scroll.in-march-24-2016-rajshekhar-anumeha-yadav-how-the-govt-gains-when-private-companies-use-aadhaar

Seven reasons why Parliament should debate the Aadhaar bill (and not pass it in a rush)

praskrishna — 2016-03-24T02:25:24Z

Critics say the Aadhaar Bill does not address concerns over privacy, even as government is rushing the Bill without adequate parliamentary scrutiny.

The blog post by Anumeha Yadav was published in Scroll.in on March 11, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Since it was launched by the United Progressive Alliance government in 2009, the Unique Identification project called Aadhaar has functioned without a legal framework. The project, which aims to assign a biometric-based number to every Indian resident, has been run under an executive order, which means Parliament has no oversight over it.

An Aadhaar Bill was introduced in 2010 but it was rejected by a parliamentary committee over legislative, security, and privacy concerns.

For long, critics have expressed concerns over collecting and centralising citizens' biometric data ‒ such as fingerprints and retina scans ‒ on a mass scale in the absence of a privacy law. The Supreme Court in several orders in 2014 and 2015 affirmed that the government cannot require people to register for an Aadhaar number and no one can be deprived of a government service for not having an Aadhaar number. The Supreme Court is now set to form a constitution bench to examine the contours of the right to privacy flowing from the government's arguments in the Aadhaar case.

Before the bench begins its work, however, the Modi government has introduced a new Bill on Aadhaar, which could override the court's orders.

The Aadhaar (Target Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill was introduced on March 3 in Lok Sabha. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said the new Bill addresses concerns over privacy and the security and confidentiality of information.

But a close examination of the Bill shows several questions remain.

1. Does the Bill make it mandatory for you to get an Aadhaar number?
Yes, you may have to compulsorily enrol under Aadhaar, despite the privacy concerns explained in the sections below.

Four-time member of the Lok Sabha, Bhartruhari Mahtab of the Biju Janata Dal, was on the parliamentary committee on finance that examined the previous Aadhaar Bill introduced in 2010. He said the new Aadhaar Bill does not specify that it will not be made mandatory.

“There is duplicity over this issue,” said Mahtab. “Nandan Nilekani [the former chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India] repeatedly told us in the parliamentary committee that Aadhaar is not mandatory. The Supreme Court also said, 'You cannot make it mandatory.'”

But if a service agent asks for Aadhaar mandatorily, then as a beneficiary, citizens have no option but to get an Aadhaar number, Mahtab explained. “The government, or a private company, cannot force me to get an Aadhaar number," he said. "The government should bring a law that clearly says Aadhaar is not mandatory.”

A committee of experts on privacy, chaired by Justice AP Shah, had recommended in 2012 that the Bill should specify that individuals have the choice to opt-in or out-of providing their Aadhaar number, and a service should not be denied to individuals who do not provide their number. The Unique Identification Authority of India had then stated to the committee that the enrolment in Aadhaar is voluntary.

But the new Aadhaar Bill does not incorporate a categorical clause on opt-in and opt-out. Instead, it broadens the scope of Aadhaar. Jaitley said the Bill will allow the government to ask a citizen to produce an Aadhaar number to avail of any government subsidy. But section 7 of the Bill is phrased more broadly, and refers to not just subsidies but any “subsidy, benefit or service” for which expense is incurred on the Consolidated Fund of India, or the government treasury.

7. The Central Government or, as the case may be, the State Government may, for the purpose of establishing identity of an individual as a condition for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred from, or the receipt therefrom forms part of, the Consolidated Fund of India, require that such individual undergo authentication, or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or in the case of an individual to whom no Aadhaar number has been assigned, such individual makes an application for enrolment: Provided that if an Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual, the individual shall be offered alternate and viable means of identification for delivery of the subsidy, benefit or service.

As noted above, the proviso in section 7 is premised on the phrase: “if an Aadhaar number is not assigned”. This, along with language preceding in the section, indicates that a citizen may be compulsorily required to apply for enrolment.

Section 8 permits a “requesting entity” to utilise identity information for authentication with the Central Identities Data Repository. A “requesting entity” is defined under Section 2(u), and will include private entities.

2. Does the Bill allow Aadhaar authorities to share your personal data?
Yes, in the "interest of national security", a term that remains undefined.

Both legal experts and members of Parliament have flagged the provisions in the Bill on the circumstances in which users' data, including core biometrics information, can be shared.

The debate centres over the interception provisions in section 33.

In a piece in The Indian Express, Nandan Nilekani, the former chairperson of the issuing authority, stated that the Aadhaar Bill provides that no core biometric information can be shared, a principle without exception. “...Clause 29(1) is not overridden by Clause 33(2),” he noted.

However, a closer reading of the Bill shows this is not the case. Clause 33(2), in fact, does provide an exception to clause 29(1)(b):

33(2) Nothing contained in sub-section (2) or sub-section (5) of section 28 and clause (b) of sub-section (1), sub-section (2) or sub-section (3) of section 29 shall apply in respect of any disclosure of information, including identity information or authentication records, made in the interest of national security in pursuance of a direction of an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India specially authorised in this behalf by an order of the Central Government

where, Section 29(1)(b) states:

29. (1) No core biometric information, collected or created under this Act, shall be — (b) used for any purpose other than generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication under this Act.

Pranesh Prakash, a lawyer and policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society said: “This implies that the core biometric information, collected or created under the Aadhaar Act, may be used for purposes other than the generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication 'in the interest of national security.'"

Legal experts point out that the phrase “national security” is undefined in the present bill, as well as the General Clauses Act, and thus the circumstances in which an individual's information may be disclosed remains open to interpretation.

Section 33(1) permits the disclosure of an individual's demographic information (but not biometrics) following an order by a district judge. It says that no such order shall be made without giving an opportunity of hearing to the UIDAI , but not to the person whose data is being disclosed.

3. Does the Bill protect you from interception and surveillance?
No, the Bill does not provide for transparency concerning covert surveillance.

Section 33(2), which permits disclosure of demographic and biometric pursuant to directions of the joint secretary in interest of national security, says such disclosures will be for three months initially, and a fresh renewal can be granted for another three months, without a limitation on the number of such renewals.

This can lead to a user being under continuous surveillance, and without any notification to the user even after the surveillance ceases, violating one of necessary and proportionate principles on communications surveillance related to user notification and right to effective remedy. In some countries, this principle has been incorporated in law. For example, in Canada, the law limits the time of wiretapping surveillance, and imposes an obligation to notify the person under surveillance within 90 days of the end of the surveillance, extendable to a maximum of three years at a time.

“The interception provisions are severely problematic," said Apar Gupta, a technology lawyer. "They are not open to independent scrutiny and even derogate from the already deficient practices which relate to phone tapping (Rule 419-A of the Telegraph Rules) and interception of data (Interception Rules, 2011).”

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan pointed out that the Bill lacks provisions on giving notice to a person in case of breach of information, in case of third party use of data, or change in purpose of use of data – which were among provisions recommended by the Justice Shah Committee on Privacy in 2012.

4. Does the Bill allow you to seek redress in case of breach of information?
Yes, but the provisions are weak.

Government officials overseeing the project said that the 2016 Bill is an improvement over the 2010 Bill as it safeguards the information of those enrolled as per sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

But technology law experts say the adjudicatory system for disclosure of sensitive personal data under the IT Act has structural flaws and is not functional.

“Initial complaints against the disclosure of sensitive personal data go to an adjudicating officer who is usually the IT Secretary of the state government and may not be trained in law,” said Gupta, the technology lawyer. “There is no court infrastructure and no permanent seat for such cases. The appellate body, the Cyber Appellate Tribunal, has not been made operational in the last three years. Hence, the civil remedies offered [in the Aadhaar Bill] are at best illusionary and unenforceable.”

5. Does the Bill give you the right to alter your information?
No, it leaves you to the mercy of the Unique Identification Authority of India.

Imagine a situation where a user simply wants to change their first or last name, or say, not use their caste name. Under Section 31 of the Bill, individuals can only request the UID authority, which may do so “if it is satisfied”. There is no penalty on the authority if it fails to respond. The Bill does not provide for a user to even be able to approach a court to ask for their information relating to Aadhaar to be corrected.

International norms for data protection give individuals the right to correct and alter information, if their demographic data changes. They provide for individuals to have a copy of their information, and to approach courts for an order to rectify, block, erase inaccurate information.

In an interview to Mint, Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society, compared the rights of Aadhaar users to the rights we now take for granted as internet users. “Authentication factors [biometrics in the case of Aadhaar], commonly known as passwords, should always be revocable,” noted Abraham. “That means if the password is compromised, you should be able to change the password or at least say that this password is no longer valid.” In its current form, the Aadhaar Bill gives users no such rights.

6. Is the current Bill an improvement over the previous one?
Not really.

The Aadhaar Bill 2016 provides that the renewals of requests for disclosure of data will be reviewed by an oversight committee consisting of the cabinet secretary and the secretaries in the department of legal affairs and the department of electronics and information technology.

This is a watered down version of the provisions in the previous Unique Identification Authority of India 2010 Bill, said Chinmayi Arun, executive director, Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University Delhi.

“The previous version or the 2010 Bill provided for a three-member review committee, consisting of the nominees of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and a third nominee of a union cabinet minister, with the restriction that these nominees could not be a member of parliament or a member of a political party,” Arun said. “This would be a more independent committee than the one proposed now, wherein there will be executive oversight for executive orders."

Regarding penalties, the previous 2010 Bill made copying, deleting, stealing, or altering information in the Central Identities Data Repository, punishable with a jail term of upto three years and a fine not less than Rs 1 crore.

Section 38 of the new Aadhaar Bill now makes the same offence punishable with a jail term of upto three years and reduces the upper limit of the fine to “not less than ten lakh rupees”.

7. Finally, does the Aadhaar Bill have enough parliamentary scrutiny?
The government has introduced the legislation on Aadhaar in the form of a Money Bill, which means the power of the Rajya Sabha to review and amend the Bill is curtailed ‒ if the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan certifies that this is a Money Bill.

The parliamentary committee on finance under Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yashwant Sinha had rejected the previous Bill in December 2011 citing legislative, security, and privacy concerns. Despite this, two successive Prime Ministers – Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi – have pushed ahead with Aadhaar project.

A common refrain has been that the unique biometric identity will resolve the problem of the poor in India to prove identity and overcome "one of the biggest barriers preventing the poor from accessing benefits and subsidies." But last April, the UIDAI in response to an RTI application revealed that of 83.5 crore Aadhaar numbers issued till then, 99.97% were issued to people who already had at least two existing identification documents, only 0.21 million (0.03%) used the "introducer system" that provides an exception to those lacking identity proof.

More recently, there has been no public consultation by the government over the latest Bill.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/scroll.in-anumeha-yadav-march-24-2016-seven-reasons-why-parliament-should-debate-the-aadhaar-bill-and-not-pass-it-in-a-rush

Debate: Five Aadhaar Myths that Don’t Stand Up to Scrutiny

praskrishna — 2016-04-01T15:48:17Z

We need to reboot the Aadhaar debate by asking why we want to create a centralised biometric database of Indian residents in the first place.

The article by Reetika Khera was published in the Wire on March 23, 2016.

A recent article, ‘Identification simplified, myths busted’, by Piyush Peshwani and Bhuwan Joshi (hereafter, Peshwani & Joshi) makes some questionable claims about the UID project. Peshwani & Joshi’s strategy appears to be to ignore those questions to which they do not have an answer (e.g., that Aadhaar is mostly redundant as far as NREGA, PDS, etc., are concerned). For others, they cherry-pick ‘facts’ without acknowledging the debates surrounding those facts. Here is a selection.

#1: To get Aadhaar, you need a Proof of ID (PoID) and Proof of address (PoA)

Peshwani & Joshi: “For many, Aadhaar is perhaps the first document of their existence – a robust proof of their identity and address that can be verified online. No more closed doors for them!”

Peshwani & Joshi: “The Demographic Data Standards and Verification Procedures committee prescribes a list of valid 18 proof of identity and 33 valid proof of address documents for getting an Aadhaar.”

Fact: In fact, 99.97% of those who have Aadhaar, used PoID and PoA to get it. For those who have neither, there is an “introducer system”, but according to a reply to an RTI request, only 0.03% of those who have the Aadhaar number used this route.

As far as closed doors are concerned, Aadhaar does not guarantee any benefits: work through NREGA, widow or old-age pensions or PDS rations. There are separate eligibility conditions for those programmes which continue to apply.

#2 On costs

Peshwani & Joshi: “Does it justify the cost? Yes, absolutely, according to the World Bank, which said the initiative is estimated to be saving the Indian government about $1 billion annually by thwarting corruption, even as it underlined that digital technologies promote inclusion, efficiency and innovation.”

Fact: Savings due to the use of Aadhaar have been disputed. The government has claimed it has saved Rs. 14,672 crore on LPG subsidies due to Aadhaar while they are likely lower – by a factor of 100 (see Business Standard or Wall Street Journal).

Peshwani & Joshi: “Even before the World Bank’s endorsement of Aadhaar, the Delhi-based National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) conducted a detailed cost-analysis study on Aadhaar in 2012… the study found that the Aadhaar project would yield an internal rate of return in real terms of 52.85% to the government.”

Fact: The NIPFP cost-benefit was based on unrealistic assumptions – e.g., estimates of leakages that Aadhaar could plug were available for only two out of seven schemes; for the rest, they assumed leakage rates which are termed ‘conservative’, but are actually not.

In their response, the NIPFP team admitted that “a full-fledged cost benefit analysis of Aadhaar is difficult” because “many gains from Aadhaar are difficult to quantify because they are intangible” and, “even if in specific schemes there may be tangible benefits, the information available on those schemes does not permit a precise quantification of those benefits.”

They went on to say that “The study has steered away from relying exclusively on analyses of isolated and small sample sets”. What evidence did the NIPFP study rely on? “For ASHAs, Janani Suraksha Yojana and scholarships, no analysis, large or small has been used. For the Indira Awaas Yojana, the three analyses relied on exclusively are a Times of India news report, a press release based on a discussion in Parliament and a “Scheme Brief” by the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR). Interestingly, the corruption estimate in the IFMR brief cross-refers to the Times of India article (apart from a CAG report)!” (Khera, 2013)

#3 De-duplication

Peshwani & Joshi: “Aadhaar means no fake, ghost or duplicate beneficiaries. Double-dipping will become more and more difficult with Aadhaar, a number that is well de-duplicated with the use of biometrics.”

Fact: De-duplication is one possible contribution of Aadhaar – but that needs biometrics, not a centralised biometric database. Local biometrics (used extensively in Andhra Pradesh before UID) mean that biometric data is stored by the concerned government department or on the local e-POS machine’s memory chip. It has the advantage that connectivity is not required (you are authenticated by the machine), errors and corrections can be correctly locally, making it more practical. The distinction between a local and centralised database is important (see #5 below).

Further, no one has a reliable estimate of the duplication problem. Two government estimates of duplicates exist: the Dhande committee for LPG (2%) and in NREGA job cards from the Government of Andhra Pradesh (also 2%).

#4 Exclusion

Peshwani & Joshi: “As far as exclusion in delivery of other services due to biometric authentication accuracy is concerned, it is important to go beyond scratching the surface.”

Fact: When the PDS was integrated with Aadhaar: “The Andhra Pradesh Food and Civil Supplies Corporation found that…nearly one-fifth ration card holders did not buy their ration.” Further, “When the government delved deeper in the issue, it was found that out of the 790 cases interviewed for the study, 400 reported exclusion. Out of the excluded cases, 290 were due to fingerprint mismatch and 93 were because of Aadhaar card mismatch. The remaining 17 cases were due to failure of E-PoS.” More here.

Moreover, Peshwani & Joshi pick one definition of ‘exclusion’ (due to biometric failure) when in fact, exclusion has a broader meaning. For instance, “In Chitradurga (Karnataka), Rs.100-150 million in wages from 2014-15 were held up for a year. When payments were being processed, their job cards could not be traced in NREGAsoft. Upon enquiry, the district administration learnt field staff had deleted them to achieve ‘100% Aadhaar-seeding’.”

#5 Profiling and privacy violations

Peshwani & Joshi: “A prominent criticism of Aadhaar is that it ‘profiles’ people.” …“Most of us have one or more identity/address documents, such as a passport, ration card, PAN card, driving licence, vehicle registration documents or a voter ID card. The government departments managing these already have our data. Aadhaar is no different. We give our data to banks, to insurance companies and to telecom companies for accounts, policies and mobile connections.”

Fact: That’s like saying BJP can be more corrupt because the Congress was corrupt. Instead we need to engage more seriously with the work of Sunil Abraham, Amber Sinha and others at the Centre of Internet and Society. There are crucial differences between Aadhaar and Social Security Number in the US, see this. Malavika Jayaram listed the UID project among a slew of “big brother” projects facilitating mass surveillance in India.

Conclusion

The debate on UID tends to begin with the premise that Aadhaar is necessary for ‘good governance’. Those claims of the UIDAI have long been demolished. In a nutshell, Aadhaar cannot help identify the poor, its possession does not guarantee inclusion into government social welfare (go to #1). It cannot reduce PDS or NREGA corruption as claimed in their early documents. Thankfully, PDS–NREGA corruption has been on the decline without Aadhaar – more needs to be done. (More details? Try this and this.)

Bihar shows how much corruption in the PDS can be reduced without Aadhaar. Credit: Reetika Khera

Aadhaar is not required for portability of benefits or for cash transfers. Cash transfers need bank accounts. To get a bank account, you need a proof of ID and a proof of address (go to #1). Aadhaar can help de-duplicate, but so can local biometrics (go to #3). We need to “reboot” the Aadhaar debate, starting on the right terms – why exactly do we need to create a centralised biometric database of Indian residents?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wire-march-23-2016-reetika-khera-debate-five-aadhaar-myths-that-dont-stand-up-to-scrutiny

In India, Biometric Data Storage Sparks Demands for Privacy Laws

praskrishna — 2016-03-23T02:27:05Z

In India, calls for strict privacy laws are growing after this week's passage of a measure that allows federal agencies access to biometric data of the nation's citizens, the world's largest such repository.

The article by Anjana Pasricha was published in Voice of America on March 18, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

The government says the use of biometrics will help cut rampant graft in the distribution of subsidies, but activists and opposition lawmakers warn it could usher in an era of increased state surveillance.

Raghubir Gaur, who works as an electrician in the capital, New Delhi, says he has never collected subsidized rations such as wheat and rice, because “somebody else has been taking the rations I should have gotten.” Now, with a national proof of identity, or "Aadhaar" card in his hands, Gaur says he is confident he will be able to access his designated subsidies.

The Aadhaar card is being used to give welfare benefits to the poor, who often cannot provide any proof identity, allowing corrupt officials to siphon entitlements.

The government says it has saved nearly $2 billion by preventing misuse of the subsidies in the last fiscal year alone.

Critics fear ‘police state’

Civil activists and research groups, however, have dubbed the Aadhaar program “surveillance technology” that constitutes a serious breach of privacy. They point to identity-verification systems in other countries, where cards or identification numbers are used for verification without creating a gigantic central database that documents every last transaction.

Indeed, the Aadhaar database also stores fingerprints and iris scans of every account holder, labeling each with a 12-digit identification number.

Concerns that this could lead to a massive invasion of privacy have been heightened because the new law allows the data to be used “in the interest of national security.”

“From verifying yourself to the ticket conductor on a train to someone who is delivering something at your house, all the way to opening a new bank account, all these transactions get logged against the centralized data base," says Pranesh Prakash of the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore. "So this invades your life completely and thoroughly.”

Some lawyers and privacy advocates say this has made it even more important to support a strong privacy law to ensure the huge government database isn't misused.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has defended the biometrics legislation, saying the data will be accessed only in rare cases that require authorization by a senior official.

“You mark my words, you are midwifing a police state,” said lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi, just one parliamentarian opposed passage of the legislation and found no comfort in Jaitley's assurances.

Fraud concerns

Despite objections, the bill was passed by legislators who argued that such a move is critical to ensuring subsidies reach intended beneficiaries in a country where millions are poor and illiterate.

Attempts to draft a right to privacy bill to protect individuals against misuse of data by government or private agencies date back to 2010, but have made little headway. The latest push started in 2014.

Citing a cyberattack targeting the U.S. government, in which a hacker gained access to the information of millions of people, research groups have also flagged security concerns around India’s ambitious Aadhaar program.

“If this database gets leaked, the entire identification system collapses because people will be able to authenticate themselves as anyone else. So identity fraud is a great concern,” said Prakash of the Center for Internet and Society.

Nearly one billion biometric identity cards have been issued in India in the last six years.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/voice-of-america-anjana-pasricha-march-18-2016-in-india-biometric-data-storage-sparks-demands-for-privacy-laws

Dead and Clicking

praskrishna — 2016-03-23T01:42:20Z

A look at the phenomenon of digital memorials; repositories and time capsules of a life even after it's ended in the real world.

The article by Jayanthi Madhukar and Sowmya Rajaram was published by Bangalore Mirror on March 20, 2016. Rohini Lakshane was quoted.

On the first death anniversary of his father-in-law last week, Pradip Mehta (36) decided to show the 120 relatives gathered at his home in Rajkot the digital memoriam he had created through Shradhanjali.com, India's first and only memory portal. As he clicked on the page, the photograph of his father-in-law popped out to the accompaniment of the Mrityunjaya mantra. Curious relatives looked on as he showed them the photo album on the portal where all good moments with the deceased we're captured for eternity. "There were two reasons why I chose this kind of memoriam," he explains. "Instead of paying a fortune on print media for the announcement, this online profile will be up for 30-odd years. And by uploading all the pictures and videos, my wife and I are making sure that he will be 'alive' for our 12-year-old son in the future." Mehta regrets that he grew up with practically no idea of his ancestors. "We don't take efforts to know our lineage at all."

That may not be the case with the millennial generation and the people who follow them. With an entire life online — selfies uploaded to Facebook, tweets, posts, Instagrams of their meals and dubsmashes — leaving behind a legacy is less a matter of choice and more a matter of inevitability. Everybody leaves behind a footprint on the Internet, but some of it can be controlled even after their death. Today, your loved ones have a 'life' beyond their death — on memorialised pages on Facebook, on webpages dedicated to their memory, and even on QR codes on their gravestones that will link to information about them online.

Indeed, the dead may soon outnumber the living, at least in the virtual space. A US statistician has calculated that Facebook's dead will outnumber the living by 2098. And when that is the case, the rules must evolve.

In memoriam

Take the way social norms have evolved in the virtual space. When a death is announced on social media, online friends begin sharing thoughts and comments. Some may not have even met the deceased in the real world but their digital interactions had been extensive enough for them to suffer a sense of grief.

So, how does one mourn a loved one who has piled up an extensive amount of digital possessions? Do they deserve an online memorial? Facebook certainly thinks so. On the social networking website, families can get full access to profiles only if there's documented instruction from the deceased. You can let the site know if a person has passed away, and Facebook will memorialise the account, which means that person's Facebook account now appears with a 'Remembering' above their name. A legacy contact (someone you choose to look after your account if it's memorialised) can then write posts, respond to new friend requests and such. There are many such accounts on the site — take the accounts (now memorialised pages) of actor Sanjit Bedi (of TV show Sanjeevani fame), Sheryl Sandberg's late husband Dave Goldberg and late F1 driver Jules Bianchi. All this, if you don't explicitly ask for your account to be deleted after your death.

In an earlier interview to The Huffington Post, Facebook spokesperson Fred Wolens had said: "When we receive a report that a person on Facebook is deceased, we put the account in a special memorialised state. Certain more sensitive information is removed, and privacy is restricted to friends only. The profile and wall are left up so that friends and loved ones can make posts in remembrance. If we're contacted by a close family member with a request to remove the profile entirely, we will honor that request."

Time capsule

Shradhanjali.com works a little differently. For Vivek Vyas, co-founder of Shradhanjali.com, the idea was born out of empathy rather than business opportunity. He says one particular incident prompted him to offer the memorial service online. He and his friend (now partner) Vimal Popat were eating samosas at a roadside restaurant off Rajkot in 2011. The paper in which the savouries were packed was the obituary page. "It was disturbing to see the photographs of the deceased wrapped around the samosas, oil-stained and later, discarded as rubbish." The friends spoke of having an online memoriam which would be decorous to the memory of the departed.

Back home, the two researched similar sites and to their surprise, found no other site offering such a service in India. "Let's do this," Popat urged Vyas, and the two quit their jobs in an insurance company to start the memorial portal. The site went live in 2011, allowing you to relive memories of your loved ones.

First, one has to register by going online to this B2C website with a simple user interface. Once a payment of Rs 2,700 is made for a 30-year subscription, the subscriber can upload information, photographs and videos about their loved one. They are offered a choice of 10 languages (for friends and relatives to write their condolences) and a selection of music that they wish to be played whenever someone visits the profile page. The content is completely user-driven and once the page goes 'live' the link is sent to all the emails that have been uploaded.

Vyas maintains that their website is gaining traction — there are about 400 paid subscribers, many of them are agencies which partner with print media giving 'packages' to the client — and in spite of not marketing aggressively, the number is growing. "The concept connects with people in a rather intimate manner," he says, "and some of the people to whom I have explained the site have shed copious tears, they are so moved by the concept of memoralising the departed."

In fact, one of the subscribers initially wrote a cheque of Rs 27,000 insisting that the yeoman service needs better cash appreciation.

The founders maintain that their venture is not comparable with Facebook or a blog as Shradhanjali is free of any advertisements and even sends out reminders of birth and death anniversaries. "Besides, the others are not exclusive platforms for memorials," Vyas stresses.

Life, beyond

Clearly, the meaning of the memory of a loved one is different today. It exists beyond photo albums and physical memories of that person's friends and family. Madhu Nataraj, choreographer and dancer, Natya Stem Dance Kampini, discusses what the community page dedicated to her late mother Maya Rao on Facebook means to her. Although the page was made when she was alive, as a way for her students to address her and to talk about her book, after her death in 2014, Nataraj says today it has become a sort of memorial page, where people post their remembrances of her mother.

"She lives on through her art. Every time I dance or step on stage — and I'm sure this is true even of her students — I remember her. This is just another dimension of that remembering," Nataraj says. In another case, the FB page of Dean D'Souza (a close friend of a writer who did not wish to be named), who died in a helicopter crash in 2013, "brings comfort and a smile". He adds, "Friends are constantly posting on it, and his profile picture is changed regularly, reminding us of a happier time. I found it unnerving at first have FB remind me that "It's Dean's birthday", but not anymore over the years."

Nataraj however emphasises that for an artist of her mother's stature, the legacy is through the memory of her art. Of course it feels good when people pay tribute to her online. But a virtual 'memorial' of her mother's life isn't the only legacy she has.

Digital remembering

But the burgeoning number of such services makes it clear that for many others, a virtual repository of their loved one's life is important. Take The Digital Beyond, a site that discusses how to plan digital legacy management — Facebook accounts, email, bank accounts etc — after death.

There are others. In a page straight out of the movie PS I Love You, a service called My Wonderful Life sends posthumous emails to loved ones. Then there's MyDeathSpace.com, which tracks social media profiles of the dead and maintains an extensive message board and Facebook page.

Services such as Living Headstones allow you to emboss a QR code upon a loved one's headstone. Scanning it connects to a website containing information you and friends add about your loved one, such as: an obituary, family heritage and history, photos, comments by friends and relatives and even links to share content on Facebook or Twitter. Another, Quiring Monuments, adds a link to the granite memorial through which smartphones can connect to your loved one's personalised website.

There are those who might raise their eyebrows at such platforms, but Vyas will have none of it. "Just because you have a mandir (a prayer room) at home, the need for temples will not diminish, will it? There is a decorum given to the memory of the dead on our site."

Do we forget?

But there is also a flipside. In the real world there is a period of mourning, people come to offer condolences and then, it is time to move on. Cyberspace may not allow this clean transition from grief and mourning to a semblance of routine. The thing about having such a digital memoriam is that grieving does not really end. This is a setback, according to clinical psychologist Dr Anand A Rao. "Grief has to be suffered immediately otherwise it will become a reaction later which will require clinical help," he says. But reliving the memory each time someone posts a query or shares a memory does not help either. "Ultimately, grief has to stop and loved one's routines have to continue. Typically I would recommend the presence of such a page for about 15 days, no more," he says.

There is also the matter of insincere tributes. As Nataraj says, she was very hurt when people who "hardly knew" her mother had posted selfies captioned: 'Maya didi', "followed by five hearts". "I found that callous," she says. "There are so many so-called obits and condolence messages and everybody wants to claim that familiarity with her that I'm sometimes wary."

But it doesn't look like the digital memorial phenomenon is going away anytime soon. Rohini Lakshane, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society, agrees with Dr Rao to an extent, saying that getting constant updates could thwart the process of grieving or healing. "But at the same time, I could see how reaching out to a larger community via public updates or photos could give them strength, moral support and empathy," she says. She points out that if a person feels that their online persona or presence is an extension of themselves, it's a perfectly "legitimate wish" to have. "Given the importance attached to details of events that we post online, I suppose the desire to create a time capsule of it will continue to exist.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bangalore-mirror-jayanthi-madhukar-sowmya-rajaram-march-20-2016-dead-and-clicking

Hard to broad ban!

praskrishna — 2016-03-22T17:00:07Z

The provisions under the Telegraph Act are wispy and can’t be convincingly invoked to exercise a jurisdiction on the internet world.

The article by Taru Bhatia was published by Governance Now on March 9, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

The Haryana government on February 19 suspended mobile internet services in the districts affected by the agitation caused by the Jat community over reservation. The ban was imposed under section 144 of criminal procedure code (CrPC) to control the situation from being fanned by rumours or inflammatory messages.Similar ban was imposed in Gujarat last year during violent protests stirred by Hardik Patel over reservation of Patel community. In a similar manner internet connectivity was snapped in Nagaland, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir last year under section 144 in order to contain law and order situation.

The CrPC section allows an official authorised by the state government to “direct any person to abstain from a certain act or to take certain order” which is “likely to prevent, or tends to prevent, obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed or danger to human life, health or safety, or a disturbance of the public tranquility, or a riot, of an affray”. “An order under this section may, in cases of emergency or in cases where the circumstances do not admit of the serving in due time of a notice upon the person against whom the order is directed, be passed ex parte,” the section states.

However, the civil rights lawyers claim that section 144 is a general law. “Section 144 is a means to curb apprehended danger and nuisance in emergencies, but its use to ban internet access for a region is an excessive and arbitrary use of powers granted to the state government under this provision,” says Mishi Choudhary, legal director, software freedom law centre (SFLC).

They, moreover, believe that the above section is not specific and contextual in cases of communication ban. So what is the correct law that comes in disposal of state authorities during emergencies that call for an urgent step? It’s section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. The act specifically deals with blocking web domains or web pages or blanket ban. Section 5(2) says that states or central government can prevent transmission of any message(s) that cause incitement to unlawful situation. Looking carefully, this section focuses only on blocking of inflammatory message(s), not a blanket ban.

In the case of Gujarat, for example, Hardik Patel, leading the agitation, used WhatsApp to spread the word for Bharat bandh, which consequently caused a blanket ban on data services by the state authorities. Under section 5(2), the authorities could have gone ahead only with banning social media websites and messaging application, instead of a blanket ban.

Section 5(2) of the telegraph Act also allows the authorities to lawfully intercept messages during public emergency. The central government has laid out clear guidelines in 2014, defining circumstances that demands phone tapping and in what manner. Similar guidelines are not there for suspending internet services under same law, however.

“The way in which the ban is imposed is unreasonable. Problem is in the method that is being used in absence of guidelines, defining circumstances under which they can impose a restriction on internet sites,” says Arun Kumar, head of cyber initiatives at Observer Research Foundation (ORF).

If government formulates these rules or guidelines it will set a threshold for state or central authorities, which will define the urgency of imposing ban on internet services. It will also make authorities answerable, limiting the misuse of power under the section 144 of the CrPC.

The civil rights lawyers cite example of section 69 A of the IT Act, 2000, which grants power to the central government to direct notice to intermediaries (for example, Facebook and Twitter), to block public access to any information that could stir violence in the country. In this case the government formulated blocking rules in 2009, providing for examination of complaints. The authority to employ this power however lies with the central government, and so, a state not using this law for taking down any message or domain from public view is understandable, during riot-like situation.

For states to legitimately use their power, it is essential to have similar blocking rules for section 5(2) of telegraph act.

Is blanket ban needed, anyway?

“Blocking all internet access is clearly an unnecessary and disproportionate measure that cannot be countenanced as a ‘reasonable restriction’ on freedom of expression and the right to seek and receive information, which is an integral part of the freedom of expression,” says Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

For instance, he adds, a riot-affected woman seeking to find out the address of the nearest hospital cannot do so on her phone. “Instead of blocking access to the internet, the government should seek to quell rumours by using social networks to spread the truth, and by using social networks to warn potential rioters of the consequences,” he says.

Former Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria used WhatsApp to counter rumours spread after circulation of a fake photo in January 2015. A similar approach could have been taken by state authorities in the case of Gujarat or Haryana; countering miscreants, informing public about the truth and emergency help details.

“Instead of doing that, we saw that in Gujarat, the police themselves engaged in acts of violent vandalism (caught on CCTV cameras), and in Manipur the police shot dead nine Manipuri tribals, including a 11-year-old child,” retorts Pranesh.

Blocking internet should be used as a last resort, and taking a balanced approach that considers interest of every stakeholder in a society is essential, argue civil rights lawyers. It is also imperative on the part of the government to formulate guidelines or a rule book to tackle the arbitrariness exercised by the states and security forces.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/governance-now-march-9-2016-taru-bhatia-hard-to-broad-ban

Aadhaar: Govt will not compromise on national security

praskrishna — 2016-03-22T15:51:13Z

The government is confident that the Aadhaar Bill will be passed.

The article by Shreeja Sen was published by Livemint on March 9, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

In what could raise concerns of privacy activists questioning India’s unique identification project Aadhaar, the government on Tuesday said national security will not be compromised at all.

“We will not compromise on national security; certainly we will not compromise. The Supreme Court has already highlighted certain areas for consideration. We are going ahead taking into consideration all the suggestions of the Supreme Court,” law minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda said at a press conference, when asked how the Aadhaar bill tabled in Parliament last week will balance the protection of core biometrics and national security concerns.

Under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, there are measures to protect core biometric information like fingerprints and iris scans of the unique identification number holders.

However, Section 33 says for the purposes of national security, officials at the joint secretary level and above can access this information. The section has caused some worry to experts. In this analysis , policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society Pranesh Prakash says that the national security clause is worrisome. Adding to their concerns, the bill does not define what national security means.

The government is, however, confident that the bill will be passed. “Certainly it will be passed. The benefits that go from the exchequer to the beneficiaries will be taken care of by this bill,” Gowda said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-march-9-2016-shreeja-sen-aadhaar-govt-will-not-compromise-on-national-security

Too Clever By Half: Strengthening India’s Smart Cities Plan with Human Rights Protection

vanya — 2016-03-22T13:49:32Z

The data involved in planning for urbanized and networked cities are currently flawed and politically-inflected. Therefore, we must ensure that basic human rights are not violated in the race to make cities “smart”.

The article was published in the Wire on March 21, 2016

As Indian cities reposition themselves to play a significant role in development due to urban transformation, the government has envisioned building 100 smart cities across the country. Due to the lack of a precise definition as to what exactly constitutes a smart city, the mutual consensus that has evolved is that modern technology will be harnessed, which will lead to smart outcomes.

Here, Big Data and analytics will play a predominant role by the way of cloud, mobile technology and other social technologies that gather data for the purpose of ascertaining and accordingly addressing concerns of people.

Role of Big Data

Leveraging city data and using geographical information systems (GIS) to collect valuable information about stakeholders are some techniques that are commonly used in smart cities to execute emergency systems, creating dynamic parking areas, naming streets, and develop monitoring. Other sources which would harness such data would be from fire alarms, in disaster management situations and energy saving mechanisms, which would sense, communicate, analyze and combine information across platforms to generate data to facilitate decision making and manage services.

According to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the government’s plan to develop smart cities in the country could lead to a massive expansion of an IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystem within the country. The revised draft IoT policy aims at developing IoT products in this domain by using Big Data for government decision-making processes. For example, in India a key opportunity that has been identified is with regard to traffic management and congestion. Here, collecting data during peak hours, processing information in real time and using GPS history from mobile phones can give insight into the routes taken and modes of transportation preferred by commuters to deal with traffic woes. The Bengaluru Transport Information System (BTIS) was an early adopter of big data technology which resorted to aggregating data streams from multiple sources to enable planning of travel routes by avoiding traffic congestions, car-pooling, etc.

Challenges

The idea of a data-driven urban city has drawn criticism as the initiative tends to homogenize Indian culture and change the fabric of cities by treating them alike in terms of their political economy, culture, and governance.

Despite basing the idea of a smart city on the assumption that technology-based solutions and techniques would be a viable solution for city problems in India, it is pertinent to note that the collection of personal real-time data may blur the line between personal data with the large data collected from multiple sources, leaving questions around privacy considerations, use and reuse of such data, especially by companies and businesses involved in providing services in legally and morally grey areas.

Privacy concerns cloud the dependence on big data for functioning of smart cities as it may lead to erosion of privacy in different forms, for example if it is used to carry out surveillance, identification and disclosures without consent, discriminatory inferences, etc.

Apart from right to privacy, a number of rights of an individual like the right to access and security rights would be at risk as it may enable practices of algorithmic social sorting (whether people get a loan, a tenancy, a job, etc.), and anticipatory governance using predictive profiling (wherein data precedes how a person is policed and governed). Dataveillance raises concerns around access and use of data due to increase in digital footprints (data they themselves leave behind) and data shadows (information about them generated by others). Also, the challenges and the realities of getting access to correct and standardized data, and proper communication seem to be a hurdle which still needs to be overcome.

The huge, yet untapped, amount of data available in India requires proper categorization and this makes a robust and reliable data management system prerequisite for realization of the country’s smart city vision. Cooperation between agencies in Indian cities and a holistic technology-based approach like ICT and GT (geospatial technologies) to resolve issues pertaining to wide use of technology is the need of the hour. The skills to manage, analyze and develop insights for effective policy decisions are still being developed, particularly in the public sector. Recognizing this, Nasscom in India has announced setting up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) to create quality workforce.

Though it is apparent that data will play a considerable role in smart city mission, the peril is lack of planning in terms of policies to govern the big data mechanics and use of data. This calls for development of suitable standards and policies to guide technology providers & administrators to manage and interpret data in a secured environment.

Legal hurdles

The Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules 2011 deals with accountability regarding data security and protection as it applies to ‘body corporates’ and digital data. It defines a ‘body corporate’ as “any company and includes a firm, sole proprietorship or other association of individuals engaged in commercial or professional activities” under the IT Act. Therefore, it can be ascertained that government bodies or individuals collecting and using Big Data for the smart cities in India would be excluded from the scope of these Rules. This highlights the lack of a suitable regulatory framework to take into account potential privacy challenges, which currently seem to be underestimated by our planners and administrators.

Regarding access to open data, though the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy 2012 recognizes sensitive data, the term has not been clearly defined under it. However, the Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 clearly define sensitive personal data or information. Therefore, the open data framework must refer to or adopt a clear definition drawing from section 43A Rules to bring clarity in this regard.

Way forward

As India moves toward a digital transformation, highlighted by flagship programmes like Smart Cities Mission, Digital India and the UID project, data regulation and recognition of use of data will change the nature of the relationship between the state and the individual. However, this seems to have been overlooked. Policies that regulate the digital environment of the country will intertwine with urban policies due to the smart cities mission. Use of ICTs in the form of IoT and Big Data entails access to open data, bringing another policy area in its ambit which needs consideration. Identification/development of open standards for IoT particularly for interoperability between cross sector data must be looked at.

To address privacy concerns due to the use of big data techniques, nuanced data legislation is required. For a conducive big data and technologically equipped environment, the governments must increase efforts to create awareness about the risks involved and provide assurance about the responsible use of data.

Additionally, a lack of skilled and educated manpower to deal with such data effectively must also be duly considered.

The concept note produced by the government reflects how it visualizes smart cities to be a product of marrying the physical form of cities and its infrastructure to a wider discourse on the use of technology and big data in city governance. This makes the role of big data quite indispensable, making it synonymous with the very notion of a smart city. However, the important issue is to understand that data analytics is only a part of the idea. What is additionally required is effective governance mechanism and political will. Collaboration and co-operation is the glue that will make this idea work. It is important to merge urban development policies with principles of democracy. The data involved in planning for urbanized and networked cities are currently flawed and politically-inflected. Therefore, collective efforts must go into minimizing pernicious effects of the same to ensure the basic human rights are not violated in the race to make cities “smart”.

Vanya Rakesh is Programme Officer, The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), Bangalore. Elonnai Hickok, Policy Director of CIS, also provided inputs for this story.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-march-21-2016-vanya-rakesh-too-clever-by-half-strengthening-indias-smart-cities-plan-with-human-rights-protection

India Still Trying To Turn Optional Aadhaar Identification Number Into A Mandatory National Identity System

praskrishna — 2016-03-24T06:34:21Z

from the sliding-down-the-slippery-slope-to-disaster dept

The blog post was published by Tech Dirt on March 22, 2016. CIS research on Aadhaar was quoted.

Last year, we wrote about India's attempt to turn the use of its Aadhaar system, which assigns a unique 12-digit number to all Indian citizens, into a requirement for accessing government schemes. An article in the Hindustan Times shows that the Indian government is still pushing to turn Aadhaar into a mandatory national identity system. A Bill has just been passed by both houses of the country's parliament, which seeks to give statutory backing to the scheme -- in the teeth of opposition from India's Supreme Court:

There have been orders passed by the Supreme Court that prohibit the government from making Aadhaar mandatory for availing government services whereas this Bill seeks to do precisely that, contrary to the government's argument that Aadhaar is voluntary.

The article notes that in some respects, the new Bill brings improvements over a previous version:

It places stringent restrictions on when and how the UID [Unique Identification] Authority (UIDAI) can share the data, noting that biometric information -- fingerprint and iris scans -- will not be shared with anyone. It seeks prior consent for sharing data with third party. These are very welcome provisions.

But it also contains some huge loopholes:

The government will get sweeping power to access the data collected, ostensibly for "efficient, transparent, and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services" as it pleases "in the interests of national security", thus confirming the suspicions that the UID database is a surveillance programme masquerading as a project to aid service delivery.

The fact that an optional national numbering system now seems to be morphing into a way to monitor what people are doing will hardly come as a surprise to Techdirt readers, but this continued slide down the slippery slope is still troubling, as are other aspects of the new legislation. For example, it was introduced as a "Money Bill," which is normally reserved for matters related to taxation, not privacy. That suggests a desire to push it through without real scrutiny. What makes this attempt to give the Aadhaar number a much larger role in Indian society even more dangerous is the possibility that it won't work:

A recent paper in the Economic and Political Weekly by Hans Mathews, a mathematician with the [Centre for Internet and Society], shows the programme would fail to uniquely identify individuals in a country of 1.2 billion.

A mandatory national identity system that can't even uniquely identify people: sounds like a recipe for disaster.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/tech-dirt-march-22-2016-india-still-trying-to-turn-optional-aadhaar-identification-number-into-mandatory-national-identity-system

CIS' Statement on Sexual Harassment at ICANN55

Vidushi Marda — 2016-03-21T15:22:11Z

The Centre for Internet and Society

Statement on Sexual Harassment at ICANN55

The Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) strongly condemns the acts of sexual harassment that took place against one of our representatives, Ms. Padmini Baruah, during ICANN 55 in Marrakech. It is completely unacceptable that an event the scale of an ICANN meeting does not have in place a formal redressal system, a neutral point of contact or even a policy for complainants who have been put through the ordeal of sexual harassment. ICANN cannot claim to be inclusive or diverse if it does not formally recognise a specific procedure or recourse under such instances.

Ms. Baruah is by no means the first young woman to be subject to such treatment at an ICANN event, but she is the first to raise a formal complaint. Following the incident, she was given no immediate remedy or formal recourse, and that has left her with no option but to make the incident publicly known in the interim. The ombudsman’s office has been in touch with her, but this administrative process is simply inadequate for rights-violations.

Ms. Baruah has received support from various community, staff, and board members. While we are thankful for their support, we believe that this situation can be better dealt with through some positive measures. We ask that ICANN carry out the following steps in order to make its meetings a truly safe and inclusive space:

Institute a formal redressal system and policy with regard to sexual harassment within ICANN. The policy must be displayed on the ICANN website, at the venue of meetings and made available in delegate kits.
Institute an Anti Sexual Harassment Committee that is neutral and approachable. Merely having an ombudsman who is a white male, however well intentioned, is inadequate and completely unhelpful to the complainant. The present situation is one where the ombudsman has no effective power and only advises the board.
Conduct periodic gender and anti sexual harassment training of the ICANN board to help them better understand, recognise and address instances of sexual harassment.
Conduct periodic gender and anti sexual harassment training for the ombudsman even if he/she will not be the exclusive point of contact for complainants as the ombudsman forms an important part of community and participant engagement
Conduct periodic gender sensitisation for the ICANN community.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-statement-on-sexual-harrasment-at-icann55

Aadhaar Bill 2016 Evaluated against the National Privacy Principles

Pooja Saxena and Amber Sinha — 2016-03-21T08:38:34Z

In this infographic, we evaluate the privacy provisions of the Aadhaar Bill 2016 against the national privacy principles developed by the Group of Experts on Privacy led by the Former Chief Justice A.P. Shah in 2012. The infographic is based on Vipul Kharbanda’s article 'Analysis of Aadhaar Act in the Context of A.P. Shah Committee Principles,' and is designed by Pooja Saxena, with inputs from Amber Sinha.

Download the infographic: PDF and PNG.

License: It is shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/aadhaar-bill-2016-evaluated-against-the-national-privacy-principles

Vulnerabilities in the UIDAI Implementation Not Addressed by the Aadhaar Bill, 2016

Pooja Saxena and Amber Sinha — 2016-03-21T08:33:53Z

In this infographic, we document the various issues in the Aadhaar enrolment process implemented by the UIDAI, and highlight the vulnerabilities that the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 does not address. The infographic is based on Vidushi Marda’s article 'Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India,' and is designed by Pooja Saxena, with inputs from Amber Sinha.

Download the infographic: PDF and PNG.

Credits: The illustration uses the following icons from The Noun Project - Thumpbrint created by Daouna Jeong, Duplicate created by Pham Thi Dieu Linh, Copy created by Mahdi Ehsaei.

License: It is shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/vulnerabilities-in-the-uidai-implementation-not-addressed-by-the-aadhaar-bill-2016

Salient Points in the Aadhaar Bill and Concerns

Amber Sinha and Elonnai Hickok — 2016-03-21T04:37:48Z

Since the release of the Aadhaar Bill, the Centre for Internet and Society has been writing a number of posts analyzing the Bill and calling out problematic areas and the implications of the same. This post is meant to contribute to this growing body of writing and call out our major concerns with the Bill.

Use of Aadhaar Number

What the Bill says:

Used to establish identity: The Aadhaar number can be used by any government or private agency to validate a person’s identity for any lawful purpose, but it cannot be used as a proof of citizenship. (Sections 4, 6, and 57)
Mandatory for access to government services: The government can make it mandatory for a person to authenticate her/his identity using Aadhaar number before receiving any government subsidy, benefit, or service whose expenditure is incurred from the Consolidated Fund of India.
Those without a number, must apply for one: If someone attempting to access an applicable service does not have an Aadhaar number, he/she should make an application for enrolment, and will be allowed to use an alternative method of identification in the meantime. (Section 7)
Open to use by public and private bodies: The Bill does not prevent the use of Aadhaar number to establish identity for other lawful purposes by the State or other private bodies. (Section 57)

Concerns:

Aadhaar is not voluntary: Section 7 makes its mandatory to have an Aadhaar number to access services, subsidies and benefits, and stipulates that in case one does not have the Aadhaar number they must apply for it. This is counter to the repeated claims about Aadhaar being purely voluntary, and the Supreme Court order dated August 11, 2015 which prevents making Aadhaar mandatory, barring a few specified services. The Bill does not limit mandatory use of Aadhaar to those services, and leaves the door open for the government to route more benefits, subsidies and services through the Consolidated Fund of India and expand the scope of Aadhaar.
There are limited and unclear alternatives: While there is a proviso in the Act which speaks for “viable and alternative” means of identification where Aadhaar number is not issued, the language is not clear and speaks of cases where Aadhaar “is not assigned” rather than simply stating that it is applicable to anyone who does not have an Aadhaar number.
There is a conflict in the objects and actual scope of the Bill: There is a conflict between the objects of the Bill which is stated as identification of individuals for targeted delivery of entitlements and Section 57 which allows all entities, public or private, to use the Aadhaar number for authentication.

Enrollment Process

What the Bill says:

Enrolling agencies must provide notice: At the time of enrollment, the enrolling agency will inform the individual of the following details— i) how their information will be used; ii) what type of entities the information will be shared with; and iii) that they have a right to access their information, and also tell them how they can access their information. (Section 3)
Biometrics and demographics will be collected: Biometric information and demographic information will be collected at enrollment. Biometric information means photograph, fingerprint, Iris scan, or any other biological attributes specified by regulations. Demographic information includes information relating to the name, date of birth, address and other relevant information as specified by regulations. (Section 2)
Special measures to ensure enrollment for all: The UIDAI will take special measures to issue Aadhaar number to women, children, senior citizens, persons with disability, unskilled and unorganised workers, nomadic tribes or to such other persons who do not have any permanent residence and similar categories of individuals as specified by the regulations. (Section 5)

Concerns:

The Bill fails to address implementation issues: The Bill does not address issues that have arising during enrolment processes that have already been implemented. These include: the collection of additional and unnecessary information, unclear retention, storage, and destruction standards for data collected by enrollment agencies, abuse of methods used to ensure all have access to the enrollment process, inaccuracy in the collection of data. Detailed procedure and chain of custody for the enrollment process needs to be addressed through provisions in the Bill particularly as this process is undertaken by contracted third party registrars and enrolling agencies.
Definition of “Biometric Information” is broad and ambiguous: The Bill defines “biometric information” as “photograph, fingerprint, iris scan, or other such biological attributes of an individual.” This definition is broad and gives sweeping discretionary power to the UIDAI / Central Government to determine “other such biological attributes of an individual”. The definition should be precise and exhaustive in its scope. Any modification to this, and other terms in the Bill, should take place only through a legislative act.

Authentication Process

What the Bill says:

Consent and use limitation during authentication: The Bill states that any requesting entity will— (a) take consent from the individual before collecting his/her Adhaar information; (b) use the information only for authentication with the CIDR.
Notice during authentication: Further, the entity requesting authentication will also inform the individual of the following— (a) what type of information will be shared for authentication; (b) what will the information be used for; and (c) whether there is any alternative to submitting the Aadhaar information to the requesting entity. (Section 8)
Retention of authentication records: The UIDAI will maintain the authentication records in the manner and for as long as specified by regulations. (Section 32) The UIDAI will not collect, keep or maintain any information about the purpose of authentication. (Section 32)
Ability to obtain authentication records: Every Aadhaar number holder may obtain his authentication record as specified by regulations. (Section 32)
Requirement to update information: The UIDAI has the power to require residents to update their demographic and biometric information from time to time. (Section 6)

Concerns:

Lack of strong consent mechanism: While the Bill does provide for seeking consent for collecting and using an Aadhaar for authentication, the Bill does not specify that this must be informed consent with an ‘opt out’ mechanism and does not specify the manner in which such consent should be sought. This leaves it it in the hands of the UIDAI and possibly the third requesting entity to determine the form of consent that is to be taken. This could result in ambiguous, misleading, or inconsistent consent mechanisms being used.
Lack of strong notice mechanism: While the Bill does provide that individuals should be given notice of the type of information be shared and what the information will be used for, and any alternative identity that will be accepted during the authentication process this is a minimal notice and does not meet the standards in the (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 which require individuals to be notified of a) the fact that the information is being collected b) the purposes for which the information is being collected c) the intended recipients of the information d) the name and address of the agency collecting the information and the agency that will retain the information. Furthermore, the Bill does not require the UIDAI, contracted bodies, or requesting entities to notify individuals of any changes in organizational privacy policies.
“Obtaining” rather than the right to access: Instead of providing the individual with a clear right to access the information that the UIDAI holds about him or her, the Bill waters down this safeguard by giving the individual the ability to obtain only his authentication record. What ‘obtaining’ will entail and how one will go about it is delegated to regulations.
Lack of ability to opt out, withdraw consent and/or ‘exit’ Aadhaar: There are no opt-out mechanisms in the Aadhaar Act.This means that individuals cannot:

Opt out and leave the Aadhaar ‘ecosystem’ once enrolled and their information is not deleted.
Opt out of sharing of information at the enrollment stage or authentication stage.
Opt out of any use, disclosure, or retention of their information prescribed by the Act.

Security

What the Bill says:

Security measures for information with UIDAI: The UIDAI will take measures to ensure that all information with the UIDAI, including CIDR records is secured and protected against access, use or disclosure and against destruction, loss or damage. (Section 28)
Security measures through contract: The UIDAI will adopt and implement appropriate technical and organisational security measures, and ensure the same are imposed through agreements/arrangements with its agents, consultants, advisors or other persons. (Section 28)
Security protocol via regulations: The UIDAI has the power to prescribe via regulation various processes relating to data management, security protocol and other technology safeguards (Section 54)

Concerns:

Undefined security measures: The Bill specifies that appropriate technical and organisational security measures shall be put in place without elaborating upon what those measure should be or defining any standards that they will adhere to. The Bill gives the Authority the power to define broad regulations pertaining to security protocol.

Confidentiality

What the Bill says:

Restriction on Sharing, Disclosure, and Use: Unless otherwise provided, the UIDAI or its agents will not reveal any information in the CIDR to anyone. (Section 28) The core biometric information collected will not be a) shared with anyone for any reason, and b) used for any purpose other generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication. (Section 29) Identity information, other than core biometric information, may be shared as per this Act and regulations specified under it. (Section 29) Identity information available with a requesting entity will not be used for any purpose other than what is specified to the individual, nor will it be shared further without the individual’s consent. (Section 29) Aadhaar numbers or core biometric information will not be made public except as specified by regulations. (Section 30)
Application of Information Technology Act: All biometric information collected and stored in electronic form will be deemed to be “electronic record” and “sensitive personal data or information” under Information Technology Act, 2000 and its provisions and rules will apply to it in addition to this Act. (Section 30)

Concerns:

Aadhaar numbers and biometric information to be made public: It is unclear for what purposes it would be necessary for Aadhaar numbers and core biometric information to be made public and it is concerning that such circumstances are left to be defined by regulation. This is different from the Telegraph Act and the IT Act which define the circumstances for interception in the Act and define the procedure for carrying out interception orders in associated Rules. Defining circumstances for such information to be made public is against the disclosure standards in the 43A Rules - which would be applicable to the UIDAI and the disclosure of core biometric information.
Unclear application of Section 43 A Rules: The Bill characterises biometric information collected as ‘sensitive personal data or information’ under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Section 43A Rules and states that the Act and Rules would be applicable to biometric information. If this is the case, than any body corporate (including the UIDAI) collecting, processing, or storing biometric information would need to follow the standards established in the Rules - including standards for collection, consent, disclosure, sharing, retention, and security. Yet, the Bill allows the UIDAI to make regulations for collection, disclosure, security etc.

Disclosure

What the Bill says:

Disclosure during authentication: During authentication, the UIDAI will respond to the authentication request with yes, no, or other appropriate response and share identity information about the Aadhaar number holder, but not share any biometric information. (Section 8)
Exceptions to confidentiality provisions: The UIDAI may reveal identity information, authentication records or any information in the CIDR following a court order by a District Judge or higher. Any such order may only be made after UIDAI is allowed to appear in a hearing. (Section 33) The confidentiality provisions in Sections 28 and 29 will not apply with respect to disclosure made in the interest of national security following directions by a Joint Secretary to the Government of India, or an officer of a higher rank, authorised for this purpose. (Section 33)
Oversight Committee: An Oversight Committee comprising Cabinet Secretary, and Secretaries of two departments — Department of Legal Affairs and DeitY— will review every direction under 33 B above. Any directions in the interest of national security above are valid for 3 months, after which they may be extended following a review by the Oversight Committee. (Section 33)

Concerns:

Unnecessary disclosure during authentication: Usually authentication would be a binary process leading to a yes or no result, however, Section 8 also allows sharing of identity information in certain cases. It is unclear why any additional information would need to be shared in the authentication process.
Lack of opportunity to data subject: In case of a court order identity information and authentication records of an individual can be revealed without any notice or opportunity of hearing to the individual affected. Aside from allowing the UIDAI a right to be heard, the Bill does not provide any means by which an individual can contest such an order or challenge it after it has been passed.
Lack of defined functions and responsibilities of oversight mechanisms: Section 33 currently specifies a procedure for oversight by a committee, however, there are no substantive provisions laid down as the guiding principles establishing the responsibilities and powers of the oversight mechanism.
Low standards for disclosure order: Though a court order from a District Judge is required to authorize disclosure of information, the Bill fails to define important standards that such an order must meeting including that the order is necessary and proportionate.
Sweeping exception of National Security: Disclosures that are made ‘in the interest of national security’ do not require authorization by a judge and instead can be authorized by the Joint Secretary of the Government of India - a standard lower than that established in the Telegraph Act and IT Act for the interception of communications.

Power of UIDAI to make rules and regulations

What the Bill says:

The matters on which the UIDAI may frame rules include:

The process of collecting information,
Verification of information,
Individual access to information,
Sharing and disclosure of information,
Alteration of information,
Request and response for authentication,
Defining use of Aadhaar numbers,
Defining privacy and security processes,
Specifying processes relating to data management, security protocols and other technology safeguards under this Act
Establishing redressal mechanisms.

Concerns:

Over delegation of powers to the UIDAI: This Bill follows in the tradition of laws like the Information Technology Act, which allows the executive a very high degree of discretionary power. As mentioned above, a number of important powers which should ideally be within the purview of the legislature are delegated to the UIDAI. The UIDAI has been administrating the project since its inception, and a number of problems have already been documented in process such as collection, verification, sharing of information, privacy and security processes. Rather than addressing these problems, the Bill allows the UIDAI to continue to have similar powers.
Lack of independence of grievance redressal mechanism: Within the text of the Bill there are no grievance redressal mechanism created under the Bill. The power to set up such a mechanism is delegated to the UIDAI under Section 23 (2) (s) of the Bill. However, making the entity administering a project, also responsible for providing for the frameworks to address the grievances arising from the project, severely compromises the independence of the grievance redressal body.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/salient-points-in-the-aadhaar-bill-and-concerns

The Digital is Political

nishant — 2016-06-05T03:58:46Z

To speak of technology is to speak of human life and living.

The article was published in the Indian Express on March 20, 2016.

“You are supposed to write about the internet, why do you keep talking about all this politics?” I was taken aback when I was faced with this question. It is true – since the year has begun, I have talked about digital education and the ways in which it needs to account for unexpected and underserved communities, about net neutrality and why the Indian government needs to build a stronger, safer, and a more inclusive digital ecosystem. I have written about freedom of speech and expression and how this is going to be the year when we stand together to save the internet from vested interests that seek to convert it from a public commons into a private commodity.

In my head, all these questions — of inclusion, of access, of presence, of rights — are questions of human life and living, but they are also those that are being hugely restructured by the internet and digital technologies. When faced with the query, I was reminded of a deep-seated division that has been at the heart of digital cultures.

Way back in the ’90s, when the internet was still a space of science fiction and the World Wide Web was in its nascent stages, there was a distinction made between Virtual Reality (VR) and Real Life (RL). The presumption in the construction of these categories was that the digital is only an escape, the technological is merely a prosthesis, and the internet is just a thing that a few geeks engaged with in their free time. However, the last three decades have made this distinction between VR and RL redundant.

We live in digital times. The digital is not just something we use strategically and specifically to do a few tasks. Our very perception of who we are, how we connect to the world around us, and the ways in which we define our domains of life, labour, and language are hugely structured by the digital technologies. The digital is ubiquitous and hence, like air, invisible. We live within digital systems, we live with intimate gadgets, we interact through digital media, and even though we might all be equally digital natives, there is no denying the fact that the very presence and imagination of the digital has dramatically restructured our lives. The digital, far from being a tool, is a condition and context that defines the shapes and boundaries of our understanding of the self, the society, and the structures of governance.

The pervasive nature of the digital technologies and internet can be found at multiple levels. For instance, we do not think about going online anymore, because most of our devices are connected 24×7 to the digital web. Even when we are not online, sunk in a bad network connection, or protecting our precious data usage, we know that our avatars and digital identities are online and talking without us.

So established is this phenomenon that we even have a name for the anxiety it creates: FOMO — the Fear Of Missing Out. Similarly, the digital can be located at the level of human understanding. We are used to thinking of ourselves as digital systems. We talk about our primary identity as one marked by information overload. We often complain, when faced with too many demands on our time and space, that we don’t have enough bandwidth to deal with new problems, and we are not referring to digital connectivity.

The digital also has space at the level of policy and governance. If you, like the many millions of Indians, have registered for an Aadhaar card, you have already been marked by a digital identity whether or not you have broadband access. When our government launches Digital India campaigns, it is not merely about an economic model of growth, but it is suggesting that the digital is going to be at the foundations of the new India that we want to build for the future.

If the digital is so central to our fundamental understanding of the self, the society, and the state, then surely it is time to stop thinking that these technologies have nothing to do with politics? There remains a forced imagination of technologies as devices, as tools, as prostheses which do not have any other role than the performing of a function. However, this is a fallacy, because not only do technologies shape our sense of who we are, but they also prescribe new templates and models of who we are going to be. In the process, these technologies take political action, create social structures, mobilise cultural possibilities, and often, because they are technologies that are still elite and available to the privileged few in the country, they enable decisions which are not always fair, open, and just.

Hence, a technological decision cannot be read merely as a technical decisions but as human decisions. To speak of technology is to speak of human life and living. To write about technology is to write about politics, because a separation between the two is not only futile but downright dangerous.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-march-20-2016-nishant-shah-digital-is-political