Centre for Internet and Society

Press Release, March 11, 2016: The Law cannot Fix what Technology has Broken!

Japreet Grewal and Sunil Abraham — 2016-03-16T10:10:40Z

We published and circulated the following press release on March 11, 2016, as the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. This Bill was proposed by finance minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley to give legislative backing to Aadhaar, being implemented by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

The Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 today. This Bill was proposed by finance minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley to give legislative backing to Aadhaar, being implemented by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

The Bill was introduced as a money bill and there was no public consultation to evaluate the provisions therein even though there are very serious ramifications for the Right to Privacy and the Right to Association and Assembly. The Bill has made it compulsory for an individual to enrol under Aadhaar in order to receive any subsidy, benefit or service from the Government. Biometric information that is required for the purpose of enrolment has been deemed "sensitive personal information" and restrictions have been imposed on use, disclosure and sharing of such information for purposes other than authentication, disclosure made pursuant to a court order or in the interest of national security. Here, the Bill has acknowledged the standards of protection of sensitive personal information established under Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The Bill has also laid down several penal provisions for acts that include impersonation at the time of enrolment, unauthorised access to the Central Identities Data Repository, unauthorised use by requesting entity, noncompliance with intimation requirements, etc.

Key Issues

1. Identification without Consent

Before the Aadhaar project it was not possible for the Indian government to identify citizens without their consent. But once the government has created a national centralized biometric database it will be possible for the government to identify any citizen without their consent. Hi-resolution photography and videography make it trivial for governments and also any other actor to harvest biometrics remotely. In other words, the technology makes consent irrelevant. A German ministers fingerprints were captured by hackers as she spoke using hand gesture at at conference. In a similar manner the government can now identify us both as individuals and also as groups without requiring our cooperation. This has direct implications for the right to privacy as we will be under constant government surveillance in the future as CCTV camera resolutions improve and there will be chilling effects on the right to free speech and the freedom of association. The only way to fix this is to change the technology configuration and architecture of the project. The law cannot be used as band-aid on really badly designed technology.

2. Fallible Technology

The technology used for collection and authentication as been said to be fallible. It is understood that the technology has been feasible for a population of 200 million. The Biometrics Standards Committee of UIDAI has acknowledged the lack of data on how a biometric authentication technology will scale up where the population is about 1.2 billion. Further, a report by 4G Identity Solutions estimates that while in any population, approximately 5% of the people have unreadable fingerprints, in India it could lead to a failure to enroll up to 15% of the population.

We know that the Aadhaar number has been issued to dogs, trees (with the Aadhaar letter containing the photo of a tree). There have been slip-ups in the Aadhaar card enrolment process, some cards have ended up with pictures of an empty chair, a tree or a dog instead of the actual applicants. An RTI application has revealed that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has identified more than 25,000 duplicate Aadhaar numbers in the country till August 2015.

At the stage of authentication, the accuracy of biometric identification depends on the chance of a false positiveâ€” the probability that the identifiers of two persons will match. For the current population of 1.2 billion the expected proportion of duplicates is 1/121, a ratio which is far too high. In a recent paper in EPW by Hans Mathews, a mathematician with CIS, shows that as per UIDAI's own statistics on failure rates, the programme would badly fail to uniquely identify individuals in India. [1]

Endnote

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/epw-27-february-2016-hans-varghese-mathews-flaws-in-uidai-process

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-release-aadhaar-11032016-the-law-cannot-fix-what-technology-has-broken

List of Recommendations on the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 - Letter Submitted to the Members of Parliament

Amber Sinha, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Sunil Abraham, and Vanya Rakesh — 2016-03-21T08:50:09Z

On Friday, March 11, the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. The Bill was introduced as a money bill and there was no public consultation to evaluate the provisions therein even though there are very serious ramifications for the Right to Privacy and the Right to Association and Assembly. Based on these concerns, and numerous others, we submitted an initial list of recommendations to the Members of Parliaments to highlight the aspects of the Bill that require immediate attention.

Download the submission letter: PDF.

Text of the Submission

On Friday, March 11, the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. The Bill was introduced as a money bill and there was no public consultation to evaluate the provisions therein even though there are very serious ramifications for the Right to Privacy and the Right to Association and Assembly. The Bill has made it compulsory for all Indian to enroll for Aadhaar in order to receive any subsidy, benefit, or service from the Government whose expenditure is incurred from the Consolidate Fund of India. Apart from the issue of centralisation of the national biometric database leading to a deep national vulnerability, the Bill also keeps unaddressed two serious concerns regarding the technological framework concerned:

Identification without Consent: Before the Aadhaar project it was not possible for the Indian government or any private entity to identify citizens (and all residents) without their consent. But biometrics allow for non-consensual and covert identification and authentication. The only way to fix this is to change the technology configuration and architecture of the project. The law cannot be used to correct the problems in the technological design of the project.
Fallible Technology: The Biometrics Standards Committee of UIDAI has acknowledged the lack of data on how a biometric authentication technology will scale up where the population is about 1.2 billion. The technology has been tested and found feasible only for a population of 200 million. Further, a report by 4G Identity Solutions estimates that while in any population, approximately 5% of the people have unreadable fingerprints, in India it could lead to a failure to enroll up to 15% of the population. For the current Indian population of 1.2 billion the expected proportion of duplicates is 1/121, a ratio which is far too high. [1]

Based on these concerns, and numerous others, we sincerely request you to ensure that the Bill is rigorously discussed in Rajya Sabha, in public, and, if needed, also by a Parliamentary Standing Committee, before considering its approval and implementation. Towards this, we humbly submit an initial list of recommendations to highlight the aspects of the Bill that require immediate attention:

Implement the Recommendations of the Shah and Sinha Committees: The report by the Group of Experts on Privacy chaired by the Former Chief Justice A P Shah [2] and the report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance (2011-2012) chaired by Shri Yashwant Sinha [3] have suggested a rigorous and extensive range of recommendations on the Aadhaar / UIDAI / NIAI project and the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 from which the majority sections of the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, are drawn. We request that these recommendations are seriously considered and incorporated into the Aadhaar Bill, 2016.
Authentication using the Aadhaar number for receiving government subsidies, benefits, and services cannot be made mandatory: Section 7 of the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, states that authentication of the person using her/his Aadhaar number can be made mandatory for the purpose of disbursement of government subsidies, benefits, and services; and in case the person does not have an Aadhaar number, s/he will have to apply for Aadhaar enrolment. This sharply contradicts the claims made by UIDAI earlier that the Aadhaar number is “optional, and not mandatory”, and more importantly the directive given by the Supreme Court (via order dated August 11, 2015). The Bill must explicitly state that the Aadhaar number is only optional, and not mandatory, and a person without an Aadhaar number cannot be denied any democratic rights, and public subsidies, benefits, and services, and any private services.
Vulnerabilities in the Enrolment Process: The Bill does not address already documented issues in the enrolment process. In the absence of an exhaustive list of information to be collected, some Registrars are permitted to collect extra and unnecessary information. Also, storage of data for elongated periods with Enrollment agencies creates security risks. These vulnerabilities need to be prevented through specific provisions. It should also be mandated for all entities including the Enrolment Agencies, Registrars, CIDR and the requesting entities to shift to secure system like PKI based cryptography to ensure secure method of data transfer.
Precisely Define and Provide Legal Framework for Collection and Sharing of Biometric Data of Citizens: The Bill defines “biometric information” is defined to include within its scope “photograph, fingerprint, iris scan, or other such biological attributes of an individual.” This definition gives broad and sweeping discretionary power to the UIDAI / Central Government to increase the scope of the term. The definition should be exhaustive in its scope so that a legislative act is required to modify it in any way.
Prohibit Central Storage of Biometrics Data: The presence of central storage of sensitive personal information of all residents in one place creates a grave security risk. Even with the most enhanced security measures in place, the quantum of damage in case of a breach is extremely high. Therefore, storage of biometrics must be allowed only on the smart cards that are issued to the residents.
Chain of Trust Model and Audit Trail: As one of the objects of the legislation is to provide targeted services to beneficiaries and reduce corruption, there should be more accountability measures in place. A chain of trust model must be incorporated in the process of enrolment where individuals and organisations vouch for individuals so that when a ghost is introduced someone has can be held accountable blame is not placed simply on the technology. This is especially important in light of the questions already raised about the deduplication technology. Further, there should be a transparent audit trail made available that allows public access to use of Aadhaar for combating corruption in the supply chain.
Rights of Residents: There should be specific provisions dealing with cases where an individual is not issued an Aadhaar number or denied access to benefits due to any other factor. Additionally, the Bill should make provisions for residents to access and correct information collected from them, to be notified of data breaches and legal access to information by the Government or its agencies, as matter of right. Further, along with the obligations in Section 8, it should also be mandatory for all requesting entities to notify the individuals of any changes in privacy policy, and providing a mechanism to opt-out.
Establish Appropriate Oversight Mechanisms: Section 33 currently specifies a procedure for oversight by a committee, however, there are no substantive provisions laid down that shall act as the guiding principles for such oversight mechanisms. The provision should include data minimisation, and “necessity and proportionality” principles as guiding principles for any exceptions to Section 29.
Establish Grievance Redressal and Review Mechanisms: Currently, 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. An independent national grievance redressal body with state and district level bodies under it, should be set up. Further, the NIAI Bill, 2010, provided for establishing an Identity Review Committee to monitor the usage pattern of Aadhaar numbers. This has been removed in the Aadhaar Bill 2016, and must be restored.

Endnotes

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/Flaws_in_the_UIDAI_Process_0.pdf.

[2] See: http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/rep_privacy.pdf.

[3] See: http://164.100.47.134/lsscommittee/Finance/15_Finance_42.pdf.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/list-of-recommendations-on-the-aadhaar-bill-2016

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

Analysis of Key Provisions of the Aadhaar Act Regulations

amber — 2017-04-03T14:05:01Z

In exercise of their powers under of the powers conferred by Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, (Aadhaar Act) the UIDAI has come out with a set of five regulations in late 2016 last year. In this policy brief, we look at the five regulations, their key provisions and highlight point out the unresolved, issues, unaddressed, and created issues as result of these regulations.

This blog post was edited by Elonnai Hickok

Introduction

At the outset it is important to note that a concerning feature of these regulations is that they intend to govern the processes of a body which has been in existence for over six years, and has engaged in all the activities sought to be governed by these policies at a massive scale, considering the claims of over one billion Aadhaar number holders. However, the regulation do not acknowledge, let alone address past processes, practices, enrollments, authentications, use of technology etc. this fact, and there are no provisions that effectively address the past operations of the UIDAI. Below is an analysis of the five regulations issued thus far by the UIDAI.

Unique Identification Authority of India (Transactions of Business at Meetings of the Authority) Regulations^{^[1]}

These regulations framed under clause (h) of sub-section (2) of section 54 read with sub-section (1) of section 19 of the Aadhaar Act, deal with the meetings of the UIDAI, the process following up to each meeting, and the manner in which all meetings are to be conducted.

Provision: Sub-Regulation 3.

Meetings of the Authority– (1) There shall be no less than three meetings of the Authority in a financial year on such dates and at such places as the Chairperson may direct and the interval between any two meetings shall not in any case, be longer than five months

Observations:

The number of times that UIDAI would meet in a year is far too less, taking in account the significance of the responsibilities of UIDAI as the sole body for policy making for all issues related to Aadhaar. In contrast, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is required to meet at least once a month. Other bodies such as SEBI and IRDAI are also required to meet at least four times^{^[2]} and six times^{^[3]} in a year respectively.

Provision: Sub-Regulation 8 (5)

Decisions taken at every meeting of the Authority shall be published on the website of Authority unless the Chairperson determines otherwise on grounds of ensuring confidentiality.

Observations:

The Chairperson has the power to determine withholding publication of the decisions of the meeting on the broad grounds of ‘confidentiality’. Given the fact that the decisions taken by UIDAI as a public body can have very real implications for the rights of residents, the ground of confidentiality is not sufficient to warrant withholding publication. It is curious that instead of referring to the clearly defined exceptions laid down in other similar provisions such as the exceptions in Section 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the rules merely refer to vague and undefined criteria of ‘confidentiality’.

Provision: Sub-Regulation 14 (4)

Members of the Authority and invitees shall sign an initial Declaration at the first meeting of the Authority for maintaining the confidentiality of the business transacted at meetings of the Authority in Schedule II.

Observations:

The above provision, combined with the fact that there is no provision regarding publication of the minutes of the meetings of UIDAI raise serious questions about the transparency of its functioning.

Unique Identification Authority of India (Enrolment and Update) Regulations^{^[4]}

These regulations, framed under sub-section (1), and sub-clauses (a), (b), (d,) (e), (j), (k), (l), (n), (r), (s), and (v) of sub-section (2), of Section 54 of the Aadhaar Act deals with the enrolment process, the generation of an Aadhaar number, updation of information and governs the conduct of enrolment agencies and associated third parties.

Provisions:

Sub-Regulation 8 (2), (3) and (4)

The standard enrolment/update software shall have the security features as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

All equipment used in enrolment, such as computers, printers, biometric devices and other accessories shall be as per the specifications issued by the Authority for this purpose.

The biometric devices used for enrolment shall meet the specifications, and shall be certified as per the procedure, as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

Sub-Regulation 3 (2)

The standards for collecting the biometric information shall be as specified by the Authority for this purpose.

Sub-Regulation 4 (5)

The standards of the above demographic information shall be as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

Sub-Regulation 6 (2)

For residents who are unable to provide any biometric information contemplated by these regulations, the Authority shall provide for handling of such exceptions in the enrolment and update software, and such enrolment shall be carried out as per the procedure as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

Sub-Regulation 14 (2)

In case of rejection due to duplicate enrolment, resident may be informed about the enrolment against which his Aadhaar number has been generated in the manner as may be specified by the Authority.

Observations:

Though in February 2017, the UIDAI published technical specifications for registered devices^{^[5]}, the regulations leave unaddressed issues such as lack of appropriately defined security safeguards in the Aadhaar. There is a general trend of continued deferrals in the regulations by stating that matters would be specified later on important aspects such as rejection of applications, uploading of the enrolment packet to the CIDR, the procedure for enrolling residents with biometric exceptions, the procedure for informing residents about acceptance/rejection of enrolment application, specifying the convenience fee for updation of residents’ information, the procedure for authenticating individuals across services etc.c. There is a clear failure to exercise the mandate delegated to UIDAI, leaving key matters to determined at a future unspecified date. The delay and ambiguity around when regulations will be defined is all the more problematic in light of the fact that the project has been implemented since 2010 and the Aadhaar number is now mandatory for availing a number of services.

Further it is important to note that a number of policies put out by the UIDAI predate these regulations, on which the regulations are completely silent, thus neither endorsing previous policies nor suggesting that they may be revisited. Further, the regulations choose to not engage with the question of operation of the Aadhaar project, enrolment and storage of data etc prior to the notification of these regulations, or the policies which these regulations may regularise. For instance, the regulations do not specify any measures to deal with issues arising out of enrolment devices used prior to the development of the February 2017 specifications.

Provision: Sub-Regulation 32

The Authority shall set up a contact centre to act as a central point of contact for resolution of queries and grievances of residents, accessible to residents through toll free number(s) and/ or e-mail, as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

(2) The contact centre shall:

Provide a mechanism to log queries or grievances and provide residents with a unique reference number for further tracking till closure of the matter;
Provide regional language support to the extent possible;
Ensure safety of any information received from residents in relation to their identity information;
Comply with the procedures and processes as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

(3) Residents may also raise grievances by visiting the regional offices of the Authority or through any other officers or channels as may be specified by the Authority.

Observations:

While the setting up of a grievance redressal mechanism under the regulations is a welcome move, there is little clarity about the procedure to be followed, nor is a timeline for it specified. The chapter on grievance redressal is in fact one of the shortest chapters in the regulations. The only provision in this chapter deals with the setting up of a contact centre, a curious choice of term for what is supposed to be the primary quasi judicial grievance redressal body for the Aadhaar project. In line with the indifferent and insouciant terminology of ‘contact centre’, the chapter is restricted to the matters of the logging of queries and grievances by the contact centre, and does not address the matter of procedure or timelines, and even the substantive provisions about the nature of redress available. Furthermore, the obligation on the contact centre to protect information received is limited to ‘ensuring safety’ an ambiguous standard that does not speak to any other standards in Indian law.

Aadhaar (Authentication) Regulations, 2016^{^[6]}

These regulations, framed under sub-section (1), and sub-clauses (f) and (w) of sub-section (2) of Section 54 of the Aadhaar Act deals with the authentication framework for Aadhaar numbers, the governance of authentication agencies and the procedure for collection, storage of authentication data and records.

Provisions:

Sub-Regulation 5 (1)

At the time of authentication, a requesting entity shall inform the Aadhaar number holder of the following details:—

(a) the nature of information that will be shared by the Authority upon authentication;

(b) the uses to which the information received during authentication may be put; and

Sub-Regulation 6 (2)

A requesting entity shall obtain the consent referred to in sub-regulation (1) above in physical or preferably in electronic form and maintain logs or records of the consent obtained in the manner and form as may be specified by the Authority for this purpose.

Observations:

Sub-regulation 5 mentions that at the time of authentication, requesting entities shall inform the Aadhaar number holder of alternatives to submission of identity information for the purpose of authentication. Similarly, sub-regulation 6 mentions that requesting entity shall obtain the consent of the Aadhaar number holder for the authentication. However, in neither of the above circumstances do the regulations specify the clearly defined options that must be made available to the Aadhaar number holder in case they do not wish submit identity information, nor do the regulations specify the procedure to be followed in case the Aadhaar number holder does not provide consent.

Most significantly, this provision does little by way of allaying the fears raised by the language in Section 8 (4) of the Aadhaar Act which states that UIDAI “shall respond to an authentication query with a positive, negative or any other appropriate response sharing such identity information.” This section gives a very wide discretion to UIDAI to share personal identity information with third parties, and the regulations do not temper or qualify this power in any way.

Sub-Regulation 11 (1) and (4)

The Authority may enable an Aadhaar number holder to permanently lock his biometrics and temporarily unlock it when needed for biometric authentication.

The Authority may make provisions for Aadhaar number holders to remove such permanent locks at any point in a secure manner.

Observations:

A welcome provision in the regulation is that of biometric locking which allows Aadhaar number holders to permanently lock his biometrics and temporarily unlock it only when needed for biometric authentication. However, in the same breath, the regulation also provides for the UIDAI to make provisions to remove such locking without any specified grounds for doing so.

Provision: Sub-Regulation 18 (2), (3) and (4)

The logs of authentication transactions shall be maintained by the requesting entity for a period of 2 (two) years, during which period an Aadhaar number holder shall have the right to access such logs, in accordance with the procedure as may be specified.

Upon expiry of the period specified in sub-regulation (2), the logs shall be archived for a period of five years or the number of years as required by the laws or regulations governing the entity, whichever is later, and upon expiry of the said period, the logs shall be deleted except those records required to be retained by a court or required to be retained for any pending disputes.

The requesting entity shall not share the authentication logs with any person other than the concerned Aadhaar number holder upon his request or for grievance redressal and resolution of disputes or with the Authority for audit purposes. The authentication logs shall not be used for any purpose other than stated in this sub-regulation.

Observations:

While it is specified that the authentication logs collected by the requesting entities shall not be shared with any person other than the concerned Aadhaar number holder upon their request or for grievance redressal and resolution of disputes or with the Authority for audit purposes, and that the authentication logs may not be used for any other purpose, the maintenance of the logs for a period of seven years seems excessive. Similarly, the UIDAI is also supposed to store Authentication transaction data for over five years. This is in violation of the widely recognized data minimisation principles which seeks that data collectors and data processors delete personal data records when the purpose for which it has been collected if fulfilled. While retention of data for audit and dispute-resolution purpose is legitimate, the lack of specification of security standards and the overall lack of transparency and inadequate grievance redressal mechanism greatly exacerbate the risks associated with data retention.

Aadhaar (Sharing of Information) Regulations, 2016 and Aadhaar (Data security) Regulations, 2016^{^[7]}

Framed under the powers conferred by sub-section (1), and sub-clause (o) of sub-section (2), of Section 54 read with sub-clause (k) of sub-section (2) of Section 23, and sub-sections

(2) and (4) of Section 29, of the Aadhaar Act, the Sharing of Information regulations look at the restrictions on sharing of identity information collected by the UIDAI and requesting entities. The Data Security regulation, framed under powers conferred by clause (p) of subsection (2) of section 54 of the Aadhaar Act, looks at security obligations of all service providers engaged by the UIDAI.

Provision: Sub-Regulation 6 (1)

All agencies, consultants, advisors and other service providers engaged by the Authority, and ecosystem partners such as registrars, requesting entities, Authentication User Agencies and Authentication Service Agencies shall get their operations audited by an information systems auditor certified by a recognised body under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and furnish certified audit reports to the Authority, upon request or at time periods specified by the Authority.

Observations:

The regulation states that audits shall be conducted by an information systems auditor certified by a recognised body under the Information Technology Act, 2000. However, there is no such certifying body under the Information Technology Act. This suggests a lack of diligence in framing the rules, and will inevitably to lead to inordinate delays, or alternately, a lack of a clear procedure in the appointment of an auditor. Further, instead of prescribing a regular and proactive process of audits, the regulation only limits audits to when requested or as deemed appropriate by UIDAI. This is another, in line of many provisions, whose implication is power being concentrated in the hands of UIDAI, with little scope for accountability and transparency.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it must be stated that the regulations promulgated by the UIDAI leave a lot to be desired. Some of the most important issues raised against the Aadhaar Act, which were delegated to the UIDAI’s rule making powers have not been addressed at all. Some of the most important issues such as data security policies, right to access records of Aadhaar number holders, procedure to be followed by the grievance redressal bodies, uploading of the enrolment packet to the CIDR, procedure for enrolling residents with biometric exceptions, procedure for informing residents about acceptance/rejection of enrolment application have left unaddressed and ‘may be specified’ at a later data. These failures leave a gaping hole especially in light of the absence of a comprehensive data protection legislation in India, as well the speed and haste with the enrolment and seeding has been done by the UIDAI, and the number of services, both private and public, which are using or planning to use the Aadhaar number and the authentication process as a primary identifier for residents.

^{^[1]} Available at https://uidai.gov.in/legal-framework/acts/regulations.html

^{^[2]} https://www.irda.gov.in/ADMINCMS/cms/frmGeneral_Layout.aspx?page=PageNo62&flag=1

^{^[3]} http://www.sebi.gov.in/acts/boardregu.html

^{^[4]} Available at https://uidai.gov.in/legal-framework/acts/regulations.html

^{^[5]} Available at: https://uidai.gov.in/images/resource/aadhaar_registered_devices_2_0_09112016.pdf

^{^[6]} Available at https://uidai.gov.in/legal-framework/acts/regulations.html

^{^[7]} Available at https://uidai.gov.in/legal-framework/acts/regulations.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysis-of-key-provisions-of-aadhaar-act-regulations

An Urgent Need for the Right to Privacy

sumandro — 2016-03-17T07:40:12Z

Along with a group of individuals and organisations from academia and civil society, we have drafted and are signatories to an open letter addressed to the Union government and urging the same to "urgently take steps to uphold the constitutional basis to the right to privacy and fulfil it’s constitutional and international obligations." Here we publish the text of the open letter. Please follow the link below to support it by joining the signatories.

Read and sign the open letter.

Text of the Open Letter

As our everyday lives are conducted increasingly through electronic communications the necessity for privacy protections has also increased. While several countries across the globe have recognised this by furthering the right to privacy of their citizens the Union Government has adopted a regressive attitude towards this core civil liberty. We urge the Union Government to take urgent measures to safeguard the right to privacy in India.

Our concerns are based on a continuing pattern of disregard for the right to privacy by several governments in the past. This trend has increased as can be plainly viewed from the following developments.

In 2015, the Attorney General in the case of *K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India*, argued before the Hon’ble Supreme Court that there is no right to privacy under the Constitution of India. The Hon'ble Court was persuaded to re-examine the basis of the right to privacy upsetting 45 years of judicial precedent. This has thrown the constitutional right to privacy in doubt and the several judgements that have been given under it. This includes the 1997 PUCL Telephone Tapping judgement as well. We urge the Union Government to take whatever steps are necessary and urge the Supreme Court to hold that a right to privacy exists under the Constitution of India.

Recently Mr. Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance introduced the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. This bill was passed on March 11, 2016 in the middle of budget discussion on a short notice as a money bill in the Lok Sabha when only 73 of 545 members were present. Its timing and introduction as a money bill prevents necessary scrutiny given the large privacy risks that arise under it. This version of the bill was never put up for public consultation and is being rushed through without adequate discussion. Even substantively it fails to give accountable privacy safeguards while making Aadhaar mandatory for availing any government subsidy, benefit, or service.

We urge the Union Government to urgently take steps to uphold the constitutional basis to the right to privacy and fulfil it’s constitutional and international obligations. We encourage the Government to have extensive public discussions on the Aadhaar Bill before notifying it. We further call upon them to constitute a drafting committee with members of civil society to draft a comprehensive statute as suggested by the Justice A.P. Shah Committee Report of 2012.

Signatories:

Amber Sinha, the Centre for Internet and Society
Japreet Grewal, the Centre for Internet and Society
Joshita Pai, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University
Raman Jit Singh Chima, Access Now
Sarvjeet Singh, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University
Sumandro Chattapadhyay, the Centre for Internet and Society
Sunil Abraham, the Centre for Internet and Society
Vanya Rakesh, the Centre for Internet and Society

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/an-urgent-need-for-the-right-to-privacy

Press Release, March 15, 2016: The New Bill Makes Aadhaar Compulsory!

Amber Sinha — 2016-03-16T10:11:32Z

We published and circulated the following press release on March 15, 2016, to highlight the fact that the Section 7 of the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 states that authentication of the person using her/his Aadhaar number can be made mandatory for the purpose of disbursement of government subsidies, benefits, and services; and in case the person does not have an Aadhaar number, s/he will have to apply for Aadhaar enrolment.

Nandan Nilekani, the former chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India had repeatedly stated that Aadhaar is not mandatory. However, in the last few years various agencies and departments of the government, both at the central and state level, had made it mandatory in order to be able to avail beneficiary schemes or for the arrangement of salary, provident fund disbursals, promotion, scholarship, opening bank account, marriages and property registrations. In August 2015, the Supreme Court passed an order mandating that the Aadhaar number shall remain optional for welfare schemes, stating that no person should be denied any benefit for reason of not having an Aadhaar number, barring a few specified services.

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, however, has not followed this mandate. Section 7 of the Bill states that “a person should be authenticated or give proof of the Aadhaar number to establish his/her identity” “as a condition for receiving subsidy, benefit or service”. Further, it reads, “In the case a person does not have an Aadhaar number, he/she should make an application for enrollment.” The language of the provision is very clear in making enrollment in Aadhaar mandatory, in order to be entitled for welfare services. Section 7 also says that “the person will be offered viable and alternate means of identification for receiving the subsidy, benefit or service. However, these unspecified alternate means will be made available in the event “an Aadhaar number is not assigned”. This language is vague and it is not clear whether it mandates alternate means of identification for those who choose not to apply for an Aadhaar number for any reason. The fact that it does make it mandatory to apply for an Aadhaar number for persons without it, may lead to the presumption that the alternate means are to be made available for those who may have applied for an Aadhaar number but it has not been assigned for any reason. It is also noteworthy that draft legislation is silent on what the “viable and alternate means of identification” could be. There are a number of means of identification, which are recognised by the state, and a schedule with an inclusive list could have gone a long way in reducing the ambiguity in this provision.

Another aspect of Section 7 which is at odds with the Supreme Court order is that it allows making an Aadhaar number mandatory for “for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred” from the Consolidated Fund of India. The Supreme Court had been very specific in articulating that having an Aadhaar number could not be made compulsory except for “any purpose other than the PDS Scheme and in particular for the purpose of distribution of foodgrains, etc. and cooking fuel, such as kerosene” or for the purpose of the LPG scheme. The restriction in the Supreme Court order was with respect to the welfare schemes, however, instead of specifying the schemes, Section 7 specified the source of expenditure from which subsidies, benefits and services can be funded, making the scope much broader. Section 7, in effect, allows the Central Government to circumvent the Supreme Court order if they choose to tie more subsidies, benefits and services to the Consolidated Fund of India.

These provisions run counter to the repeated claims of the government for the last six years that Aadhaar is not compulsory, nor is the specification by the Supreme Court for restricting use of Aadhaar to a few services only, reflected anywhere in the Bill. The “viable and alternate means” clause is too vague and inadequate to prevent denial of benefits to those without an Aadhaar number. The sum effect of these factors is to give the Central Government powers to make Aadhaar mandatory, for all practical purposes.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-release-aadhaar-15032016-the-new-bill-makes-aadhaar-compulsory

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

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

Aadhaar data leaks not from UIDAI: Centre

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T08:27:28Z

Aadhaar is foolproof, it tells SC

The article by Krishnadas Rajagopal was published in the Hindu on May 3, 2017.

Leaks of Aadhaar card details are not from the UIDAI, but at the State level, the Union government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

“As of today, Aadhaar is foolproof. Biometric technology is the best system in 2016. There has not been a single leak from the UIDAI. The leaks of details may have been from the States... their offices and agencies,” advocate Arghya Sengupta, counsel for the Centre, submitted in the court.

The Centre’s clarification comes in the midst of reports that data of over 130 million Aadhaar cardholders have been leaked from four government websites.

Reports, based on a study conducted by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bengaluru-based organisation, said Aadhaar numbers, names and other personal details of people have been leaked.

The Centre was washing its hands of the alleged leaks for the second consecutive day in the Supreme Court.

A-G’s assurance

On Tuesday, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi had emphatically assured the Supreme Court that biometrics of Aadhaar cardholders were safe and had not fallen into other hands. He said the biometric details were kept in a central database run by the Centre.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-krishnadas-rajagopal-may-3-2017-aadhaar-data-leaks-not-from-uidai

Workshop on Democratic Accountability in the Digital Age (Delhi, November 14-15)

sumandro — 2016-12-15T09:27:22Z

IT for Change, along with Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), is organising a two day workshop on ‘Democratic Accountability in the Digital Age’. The workshop will focus on evolving a comprehensive policy approach to data based governance and digital democracy, grounded in a rights and social justice framework. It will be held at the United Service Institution of India, Delhi, during November 14-15, 2016. The CIS team to participate in the workshop includes Sumandro Chattapadhyay (speaker), Amber Sinha (speaker), Vanya Rakesh (participant), and Himadri Chatterjee (participant).

The workshop aims to:

Discuss the institutional norms, rules and practices appropriate to the rise of ‘governance by networks’ and ‘rule by data’ that can guarantee democratic accountability and citizen participation, and
Articulate the steps to claim the civic-public value of digital technologies so that data and the new possibilities for networking are harnessed for a vibrant grassroots democracy.

We hope the workshop can create a civil society coalition that can build effective strategies for legal and policy reform to further participatory democracy in the digital age. On the first day, the workshop will set the context through knowledge sharing and thematic presentations and discussions. On the second day, we aim to concretize strategies for collective action to further democratic accountability in the digital age.

Workshop Agenda (PDF)

Background Note (ODT)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-on-democratic-accountability-in-the-digital-age-delhi-november-14-15

Seminar on Understanding Financial Technology, Cashless India, and Forced Digitalisation (Delhi, January 24)

sumandro — 2017-01-23T13:17:19Z

The Centre for Financial Accountability is organising a seminar on "Understanding Financial Technology, Cashless India, and Forced Digitalisation" on Tuesday, January 24, at YWCA, Ashoka Road, New Delhi. Sumandro Chattapadhyay will participate in the seminar and speak on the emerging architecture of FinTech in India, as being developed and deployed by UIDAI and NPCI.

Cross-posted from Centre for Financial Accountability.

Programme Schedule

09.30 - Registration

10:00 - Introduction to the Seminar & Setting the Context

Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements

10:15–11:30 - Session 1 - Understanding the Political Context of FinTech

B P Mathur, Former Dy CAG

Prabir Purkayastha, Free Software Movement of India and Knowledge Commons

C P Chandrasekhar, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU

11:30-11:45 – Tea / Coffee break

11:45-13:15 - Session 2 - How will FinTech Impact the Poor, and Labour and Banking Sector?

Ashim Roy, New Trade Union of India

Nikhil Dey, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan

Ravinder Gupta, General Secretary, State Bank of India Officers Association

13:15-14:00 – Lunch

14:00-15:30 - Session 3 - Understanding the Economic Context of FinTech

Indira Rajaraman, Former Director, RBI

Tony Joseph, Sr. Journalist

15:30-17:00 - Session 4 - Understanding the Architecture of FinTech: Linkages to Aadhaar, IndiaStack etc

Sumandro Chattapadhyay, the Centre for Internet and Society

Gopal Krishna, ToxicsWatch

17:00 – Tea

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-understanding-financial-technology-cashless-india-and-forced-digitalisation-delhi-jan-24-2017

"Will the Magic Number Deliver?" - Roundtable on Aadhaar at CSLG, JNU, April 26

sumandro — 2016-04-20T10:49:58Z

The Centre for the Study of Law and Governance (CSLG), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), will organise a roundtable discussion on Tuesday, April 26, to discuss the Aadhaar project and Act. Along with Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Prasanna S, Apar Gupta, and Chirashree Dasgupta, Sumandro Chattapadhyay will be one of the discussants. It will take place in the CSLG Conference Room at 6 pm.

Discussion Note

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, was enacted by the Parliament on March 16. Thereafter it has been notified on March 26.

The Act empowers the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) to collect biometric and demographic information of residents to provide them with a unique number. This unique number is to be used for enumeration, identification and targeting of beneficiaries of government subsidies and services.

Since the creation of the UIDAI as an executive authority in 2009, this process of enumeration has been ongoing. Recently, it was announced that more than 100 crore residents have been given their aadhaar cards. Alongside, however, legal challenges have continued in the Supreme Court.

Given this context, this Roundatable Discussion will focus on the following set of questions (among others):

Can the Aadhaar Number enable better delivery of government subsidies and services?
How does the Act ensure data protection?
Is there a right to privacy in India? What are the implications in the context of Aadhaar?
Does the Act ensure public access to statutory remedies in case of violations?
Did the Aadhaar Bill fulfil the requirements of a money bill?

Discussion Format

Setting the Theme - Short Introduction to the Topic by Natasha Goyal

Speakers' comments, 15 minutes each, consecutive, no power points

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Sumandro Chattapadhyay, the Centre for Internet and Society
Prasanna S, Lawyer
Apar Gupta, Advocate, Delhi High Court
Dr. Chirashree Dasgupta, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance

Open Session (Moderated Q and A)

Followed by Tea

Directions to Venue

From JNU main gate, proceed straight until you get to a T-junction. Turn left. Continue until you reach a second T-junction. Turn right. Follow the road for just 0.7 km until you see a bus stop labelled “Paschimmabad.” About 50 m past the bus stop turn right at a sign that reads: “Centre for the Study of Law and Governance”. The CSLG building is on the right. The conference room is on the first floor.

Poster

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/will-the-magic-number-deliver-aadhaar-cslg-26042016

CIS Submission to TRAI Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks

2016-12-12T13:59:00Z

This submission presents responses by the CIS on the Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks published by the TRAI on November 15, 2016. Our analysis of the solution proposed in the Note, in brief, is that there is no need of a solution for non-existing interoperability problem for authentication and payment services for accessing public Wi-Fi networks. The proposed solution in this Note only adds to over-regulation in this sector, and does not incentivise new investment in the sector, but only establishes UIDAI and NPCI as the monopoly service providers for authentication and payment services.

The comments were authored by Japreet Grewal, Pranesh Prakash, Sharath Chandra, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Sunil Abraham, and Udbhav Tiwari, with expert comments from Amelia Andersdotter.

1. Preliminary

1.1. This submission presents responses by the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) [1] on the Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks (“the Note”) published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) on November 15, 2016 [2].

1.2. The CIS welcomes the effort undertaken by TRAI to map regulatory and other barriers to deployment of public Wi-Fi in India. We especially appreciate that TRAI has recognised [3] two key barriers to provision of public Wi-Fi networks identified and highlighted in our earlier response to the Consultation Paper on Proliferation of Broadband through Public WiFi [4]: 1) over regulation (including, licensing requirements, data retention, and Know Your Customer policy), and 2) paucity of spectrum [5].

2. General Responses

2.1. Before responding to the specific questions posed by the Note, we would like to make the following observations.

2.2. There is no need of a solution for non-existing interoperability problem for authentication and payment services for accessing public Wi-Fi networks. The proposed solution in this Note only adds to over-regulation in this sector. The proposed solution does not incentivise new investment in the sector, but only establishes UIDAI and NPCI as the monopoly service providers for authentication and payment services.

2.3. As the TRAI has consulted widely with industry and other stakeholders before it settled on the list of priority issues contained in Section C.6 of the Note, we are surprised to find that this Note aims to address only the problem of lack of “seamless interoperable payment system for Wi-Fi networks” (Section C.6.d. Of the Note), and does not discuss and propose solutions for any other key barriers identified by the Note.

2.4. The Note fails to clarify the “interoperability” problem in the payment system for usage of public Wi-Fi networks that it is attempting to solve. The Note identifies that lack of “single standard” for “authentication and payment mechanisms” for accessing public Wi-Fi networks as a key impediment to provide scalable and interoperable public Wi-Fi networks across the country [6]. By conceptualising the problem in this manner, TRAI has bundled together two completely different concerns - authentication and payment - into one and this is at the root of the problems emanating from the proposed solution in this Note.

2.5. Lack of standard process for authentication is created by over-regulation via Know Your Customer (“KYC”) policies, and selection of eKYC service provided by UIDAI as the only acceptable authentication mechanism for all users of public Wi-Fi networks across India, creating further economic and legal challenges for smaller would-be providers of public Wi-Fi networks as they assess their liabilities and start-up costs. Additionally, since this would amount to making UID/Aadhaar enrolment mandatory for any user of public wi-fi networks, it seems to create a contradiction with previously communicated policy from the UIDAI and the Government that no such obligation should arise. Supreme Court has also mandated over successive Orders that enrolment for UID/Aadhaar number should remain optional for the citizens and residents.

2.6. As was observed by the respondents to the TRAI Consultation concluded earlier this year, there is no interoperability problem that needs to be solved regarding payments for accessing public Wi-Fi networks. Payment services continue to be evolved and payment aggregator services provided by existing companies may be expected to resolve many of the outstanding issues of service proliferation in the upcoming years, at least in the absence of additional mandatory technical measures imposed by the government. Bundling of payment with authentication will only undermine the already existing independent market for payment aggregators, and further enforce mandatoriness of UID/Aadhaar number.

2.7. Further, the payment mechanism proposed would seem to worsen difficulties for tourists and foreigners in accessing public Wi-Fi in India, as well adds an additional layer of authentication in a system already identified (even in the Note itself) to be overburdened by regulations regarding KYC and data retention. Section C.6.b of the Note highlights the problems faced by foreigners and tourists when the authentication mechanism is premised upon use of One Time Password (OTP) that requires a functioning local mobile phone number. It contradicts itself later by proposing an authentication method that requires the user to not only download an application onto their mobile/desktop device, but also to enrol for UID/Aadhaar number and/or to use their existing UID/Aadhaar number. Instead of reducing the existing barriers to provision of and access to public Wi-Fi, which the Note is supposed to achieve, it creates significant new barriers.

2.8. The technological architecture advanced by the Note upholds support of governance and surveillance projects that, in addition to being costly in their implementation and thereby slowing down the objective of getting India connected, are also of questionable value to the security of the Indian polity. UID, UPI, and related projects risk undermining cyber-security through their reliance on centralised architectures and interfere with healthy competitive market dynamics between commercial and non-commercial actors.

2.9. The Note continues to only consider and enable commercial models for the provision of public Wi-Fi networks. We have identified this as a problematic assumption in our last submission [7]. It is most crucial that TRAI does not ignore and fail to promote and facilitate the possibility of not-for-profit models that involve grassroot communities, academia, and civil society.

2.10. Last but not the least, the term “Wi-Fi” refers to a particular technology for establishing wireless local area networks. Further, the term is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance [8]. It is this not a neutral term, and it must not be used as a general and universal synonym for wireless local area networks. We recommend that TRAI may consider using a technology-neutral term, say “public wireless services” or “public networking services”, to describe the sector. Following the terminology used in the Note, we have decided to continue using the term “Wi-Fi” in this response. This does not reflect our agreement about the appropriateness of this term. Important: The recommendation for technology-neutral regulation also comes with the qualification that safeguards like regulations on Listen Before Talk and Cycle Time are required to prevent technologies like LTE-U from squatting on spectrum and interfering with connections based on other standards.

3. Specific Responses

Q1. Is the architecture suggested in the consultation note for creating unified authentication and payment infrastructure will enable nationwide standard for authentication and payment interoperability?

3.1. No. The proposed infrastructure is likely to be costly for a large number of actors to implement and undermine some of the ongoing innovation in the Indian digital payment services industry. Rather than being helpful, it risks introducing additional requirements on an industry that TRAI has already identified as facing a number of large challenges.

3.2. There is no need for a unified architecture that provides nationwide standard for authentication and payment interoperability. It does not offer any incentive towards provision of public Wi-Fi networks. Neither is there an interoperability problem at the physical or data link layers that has been pointed out, nor is government mandated interoperability required at the payment or ID layer since there are private entities that provide such interoperability (like, payment aggregators). Additionally, we believe it is inappropriate that the TRAI is trying to predict the most suitable business/technological model for digital payments to be used for accessing commercial Wi-Fi networks. India has a booming online payments industry, and it must be allowed to evolve in an enabling regulatory environment that allow for competition and ensures responsible practices.

3.3. The Note identifies several structural impediments to expansion of public Wi-Fi networks in India, namely paucity of backhaul connectivity infrastructure (Section C.6.a), Inadequate associated infrastructure to offer carrier grade Wi-Fi network (Section C.6.c), dependency of authentication mechanism on pre-existing (Indian) mobile phone connection (Section C.6.b), and limited availability of spectrum to be used for public Wi-Fi networks (Section C.6.e). All these are crucial concerns and none of them have been addressed by the architecture suggested in the Note.

Q2. Would you like to suggest any alternate model?

3.4. Yes. The model proposed in the Note is likely to exclude several types of potential users (say, foreigners and tourists), and impose a single authentication and payment service provider for accessing public Wi-Fi networks, which may undermine both competition and security in the market for these services.

3.5. Internationally, there are cities and regions (say, the city of Barcelona and the Catalonia region in Spain) where public Wi-Fi networks have been provided in a pervasive and efficient manner by taking a light regulatory approach that enables opportunities for potential providers to set up their own infrastructures and additionally have access to backhaul. Further, reducing legal requirements on authentication should be considered in place of government mandated technical architectures for authentication and payment. In particular, allowing for anonymous access to Public Wi-Fi or wireless connectivity would reduce both the administrative and the technical burden on potential providers at the hyper-local level, especially for providers whose main activity it is not, and cannot be, to provide internet services (say, event venues, malls, and shops).

3.6. The CIS suggests the following steps towards conceptualising an “alternative model”:

remove existing regulatory disincentives,
urgently explore policies to promote deployment of wired infrastructures in general, and to enable a larger range of actors, including local authorities, to invest in and deploy local infrastructures by reducing licensing requirements in particular,
examine spectrum requirements for provision of public Wi-Fi, and
provide incentives, such as allowing telecom service providers to share backhaul traffic over public Wi-Fi, and ways for telecom service providers to lower their costs if they also make Internet access available for free.

Q3. Can Public Wi-Fi access providers resell capacity and bandwidth to retail users? Is “light touch regulation” using methods such as “registration” instead of “licensing” preferred for them?

3.7. CIS holds that capacity and bandwidth are neither comparable to tangible goods nor to digital currency. They are a utility, and the provider of the utility has to accept that their customers use the utility in the way they see fit, even if that use entails sharing said capacity and bandwidth with downstream private persons or customers. Wi-Fi capabilities are currently a built-in standardised feature of all consumer routers. Any individual, community, or store with access to an internet connection and a consumer router could become a public Wi-Fi access provider at no additional cost to themselves, furthering the goals of the Indian government in its Digital India strategy to ensure public and universal access to the internet.

3.8. In order to exploit the opportunities awarded by a large amount of entities in the Indian society potentially becoming Public Wi-Fi providers, TRAI should require neither registration nor licensing of these actors. Imposing administrative burdens on potential public Wi-Fi access providers creates legal uncertainty and will cause a lot of actors, who may otherwise contribute to the goals of Digital India, not to do so. This is particularly true for community organisers and citizens, who may not have access to legal assistance and therefore may avoid contributing to the goals of the government.

3.9. Light touch regulation when it comes to both granting license to public Wi-Fi access providers as well as authentication of retail users, however, are needed not only as an exceptional practice for such instances but as a general practice in case of entities offering public Wi-Fi services, either commercially or otherwise. Further, additional laxity in administrative responsibilities is needed to incentivise provision of free, that is non-commercial, public Wi-Fi networks.

Q4. What should be the regulatory guidelines on “unbundling” Wi-Fi at access and backhaul level?

3.10. The Note refers to unbundling of activities related to provision of Wi-Fi but it does not define the term. It is neither explained which specific activities at access and backhaul levels must be considered for unbundling.

3.11. While unbundling should clearly be allowed and any regulatory hurdles to unbundling should be removed, any such decision must be taken with a focus on urgently addressing the stagnated growth in landline and backhaul, as identified in Section C.6.a of the Note. Relying only on spectrum intensive infrastructures, such as mobile base stations, for providing connectivity, creates a heavy regulatory burden for the TRAI, while simultaneously not ensuring optimal connectivity for business and private users. The CIS is concerned that the focus of the Note on standardising a government-mediated authentication and payment mechanism detracts attention from this urgent obstacle to the fulfillment of the Digital India plans of accelerated provision of broadband highways, universal access, and public, especially free, access to internet services.

3.12. From the example of European telecommunications legislations, implementation of policy measures to ensure that vertical integration between infrastructure (say, cables, switches, and hubs) providers and service (say, providing a subscriber with a household modem or a SIM card) providers in the telecommunications sector does not become a barrier to new market entrants has yielded much success in countries that have pursued it, like Sweden and Great Britain.

3.13. Further, there should be no default assumption of bundling by the TRAI. In particular, the TRAI should consider reviewing all regulations that may cause bundling to occur when this is not necessary, and put in place in a monitoring mechanism for ensuring that bundled practises (especially in electronic networks, base station infrastructures, backhaul and similar) do not cause competitive problems or raise market entry barriers [9]. In most EU countries, especially where the corporate structure of incumbent(s) is not highly vertically integrated, interconnection requirements for electronic network providers of wired networks in the backhaul or backbone (effectively price regulated interconnection), and a conscious effort to ensure that new market players can enter the field, have ensured a competitive telecommunications environment. TRAI may consider reviewing the European regulation on local loop unbundling (1999) and discussions on functional separation (especially by the British regulatory authority Ofcom), within an Indian context.

Q5. Whether reselling of bandwidth should be allowed to venue owners such as shop keepers through Wi-Fi at premise? In such a scenario please suggest the mechanism for security compliance.

3.14. Yes. Venue owners should be allowed to provide public Wi-Fi service both on a commercial and non-commercial basis.

3.15. It is not clear from the Note and the question what type of security concerns the TRAI is seeking to address. In terms of payment security, the payment industry already has a large range of verification and testing mechanisms. The CIS objects to the mandatory introduction of the proposed payment system so as to ensure greater security for Wi-Fi access providers and the users.

3.16. As far as hardware-related security issues are concerned, it is again unclear why consumer equipment compliant with existing Wi-Fi standards would not be sufficiently secure in the Indian context. Wi-Fi has proven to be a sturdy technical standard, its adoption is high in multiple jurisdictions around the world, and it also enjoys great technical stability. Similar security assessments could easily be made for alternative wireless technologies, such as WiMaX.

3.17. The CIS foresees problems is in the allocation of risk and liability by law. The already existing legal obligation to verify the identity of each user, for instance, is likely to introduce a large administrative burden on potential Public Wi-Fi providers, which may lead to such potential providers abstaining from entering the market. Should the identification requirement be removed, however, other concerns pertaining to legal obligations may arise. These include liability for user activities on the web or on the internet (cf. copyright infringement, libel, hate speech). We propose a “safe harbour” mechanism in these cases, limiting the liability of the potential public Wi-Fi provider.

Q6. What should be the guidelines regarding sharing of costs and revenue across all entities in the public Wi-Fi value chain? Is regulatory intervention required or it should be left to forbearance and individual contracting?

3.18. The market segments identified by the TRAI in Section F.18 of the Note should normally all be competitive markets themselves, and so do not require regulatory assistance in sharing of costs and revenues. The more elaborate the requirements imposed on each actor of each market segment identified by the TRAI in Section F.18, the more costly the roll-out of public Wi-Fi is going to be for the market actors. Such a cost is not avoided by price regulation.

3.19. The TRAI may instead consider introducing public funding for backhaul roll-out in remote areas, where the market is unlikely to engage in such roll-out on its own. Presently, some Indian states (such as Karnataka) are committing to public funding for wireless access in remote areas. The Union Government can assist such endeavours.

Endnotes

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/.

[2] See: http://trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20801_0.aspx.

[3] See Section C.6 of the Note.

[4] See: http://trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20782_0.aspx.

[5] See: http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks.

[6] See Section E.11. of the Note.

[7] See: http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks.

[8] See: https://www.wi-fi.org/.

[9] See: Monitoring bundled products in the telecommunications sector is also recommended by the OECD: http://oecdinsights.org/2015/06/22/triple-and-quadruple-play-bundles-of-communication-services-towards-all-in-one-packages/.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-trai-note-on-interoperable-scalable-public-wifi

Workshop Report - UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures

vanya — 2019-03-16T04:34:11Z

This report presents summarised notes from a workshop organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) on Saturday, August 27, 2016, to discuss, raise awareness of, and devise countermeasures to exclusion due to implementation of UID-based verification for and distribution of welfare services.

Introduction

The Centre for Internet and Society organised a workshop on "UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures" at the Institution of Agricultural on Technologists on August 27 in Bangalore to discuss, raise awareness of, and devise countermeasures to exclusion due to implementation of UID-based verification for and distribution of welfare services [1]. This was a follow-up to the workshop held in Delhi on “Understanding Aadhaar and its New Challenges” at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, JNU on May 26th and 27th 2016 [2]. In this report we summarise the key concerns raised and the case studies presented by the participants at the workshop held on August 27, 2016.

Implementation of the UID Project

Question of Consent: The Aadhaar Act [3] states that the consent of the individual must be taken at the time of enrollment and authentication and it must be informed to him/her the purpose for which the data would be used. However, the Act does not provide for an opt-out mechanism and an individual is compelled to give consent to continue with the enrollment process or to complete an authentication.

Lack of Adherence to Court Orders: Despite of several orders by Supreme Court stating that use of Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for the purpose of availing benefits and services, multiple state governments and departments have made it mandatory for a wide range of purposes like booking railway tickets [4], linking below the poverty line ration cards with Aadhaar [5], school examinations [6], food security, pension and scholarship [7], to name a few.

Misleading Advertisements: A concern was raised that individuals are being mislead in the necessity and purpose for enrollment into the project. For example, people have been asked to enrol by telling them that they might get excluded from the system and cannot get services like passports, banks, NREGA, salaries for government employees, denial of vaccinations, etc. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has ordered Aadhaar not be mandatory, yet people are being told that documentation or record keeping cannot be done without UID number.

Hybrid Governance: The participants pointed out that with the Aadhaar (Targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016 (hereinafter referred to as Aadhaar Act, 2016 ) being partially enforced, multiple examples of exclusion as reported in the news are demonstrating how the Aadhaar project is creating a case of hybrid governance i.e private corporations playing a significant role in Governance. This can be seen in case of Aadhaar where we see many entities from private sector being involved in its implementation, as well as many software and hardware companies.

Lack of Transparency around Sharing of Biometric Data: The fact how and why the Government is relying on biometrics for welfare schemes is unclear and not known. Also, there is no information on how biometric data that is collected through the project is being used and its ability as an authenticating device. Along with that, there is very little information on companies that have been enlisted to hold and manage data and perform authentication.

Possibility of Surveillance: Multiple petitions and ongoing cases have raised concerns regarding the possibility of surveillance, tracking, profiling, convergence of data, and the opaque involvement of private companies involved in the project.

Denial of Information: In an RTI filed by one of the participant requesting to share the key contract for the project, it was refused on the grounds under section 8(1) (d) of the RTI Act, 2005. However, it was claimed that the provision would not be applicable since the contract was already awarded and any information disclosed to the Parliament should be disclosed to the citizens. The Central Information Commission issued a letter stating that the contractual obligation is over and a copy of the said agreement can be duly shared. However, it was discovered by the said participant that certain pages of the same were missing , which contained confidential information. When this issue went before appeal before the Information Commissioner, the IC gave an order to the IC in Delhi to comply with the previous order. However, it was communicated that limited financial information may be given, but not missing pages. Also, it was revealed that the UIDAI was supposed to share biometric data with NPR (by way of a MoU), but it has refused to give information since the intention was to discontinue NPR and wanted only UIDAI to collect data.

Concerns Arising from the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on Implementation of PAHAL (DBTL) Scheme

A presentation on the CAG compliance audit report of PAHAL on LPG [8] revealed how the society was made to believe that UID will help deal with the issue of duplication and collection as well as use of biometric data will help. The report also revealed that multiple LPG connections have the same Aadhaar number or same bank account number in the consumer database maintained by the OMCs, the bank account number of consumers were also not accurately recorded, scrutiny of the database revealed improper capture of Aadhaar numbers, and there was incorrect seeding of IFSC codes in consumer database. The participants felt that this was an example of how schemes that are being introduced for social welfare do not necessarily benefit the society, and on the contrary, has led to exclusion by design. For example, in the year 2011, by was of the The Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Amendment Order, 2011 [9], the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas made the Unique Identification Number (UID) under the Aadhaar project a must for availing LPG refills. This received a lot of public pushback, which led to non-implementation of the order. In October 2012, despite the UIDAI stating that the number was voluntary, a number of services began requiring the provision of an Aadhaar number for accessing benefits. In September 2013, when the first order on Aadhaar was passed by court [10], oil marketing companies and UIDAI approached the Supreme Court to change the same and allow them to make it mandatory, which was refused by the Court. Later in the year 2014, use of Aadhaar for subsidies was made mandatory. The participants further criticised the CAG report for revealing the manner in which linking Aadhaar with welfare schemes has allowed duplication and led to ghost beneficiaries where there is no information about who these people are who are receiving the benefits of the subsidies. For example, in Rajasthan, people are being denied their pension as they are being declared dead due to absence of information from the Aadhaar database.

It was said that the statistics of duplication mentioned in the report show how UIDAI (as it claims to ensure de-duplication of beneficiaries) is not required for this purpose and can be done without Aadhaar as well. Also, due to incorrect seeding of Aadhaar number many are being denied subsidy where there is no information regarding the number of people who have been denied the subsidy because of this. Considering these important facts from the audit report, the discussants concluded how the statistics reflect inflated claims by UIDAI and how the problems which are said to be addressed by using Aadhaar can be dealt without it. In this context, it is important to understand how the data in the aadhaar database maybe wrong and in case of e-governance the citizens suffer. Also, the fact that loss of subsidy-not in cash, but in use of LPG cylinder - only for cooking, is ignored. In addition to that, there is no data or way to check if the cylinder is being used for commercial purposes or not as RTI from oil companies says that no ghost identities have been detected.

UID-linked Welfare Delivery in Rajasthan

One speaker presented findings on people's experiences with UID-linked welfare services in Rajasthan, collected through a 100 days trip organised to speak to people across the state on problems related to welfare governance. This visit revealed that people who need the benefits and access to subsidies most are often excluded from actual services. It was highlighted that the paperless system is proving to be highly dangerous. Some of the cases discussed included that of a disabled labourer, who was asked to get an aadhaar card, but during enrollment asked the person standing next to him to put all his 5 fingers for biometric data collection. Due to this incorrect data, he is devoid of all subsidies since the authentication fails every time he goes to avail it. He stopped receiving his entitlements. Though problems were anticipated, the misery of the people revealed the extent of the problems arising from the project. In another case, an elderly woman living alone, since she could not go for Aadhaar authentication, had not been receiving the ration she is entitled to receive for the past 8 months. When the ration shop was approached to represent her case, the dealers said that they cannot provide her ration since they would require her thumb print for authentication. Later, they found out that on persuading the dealer to provide her with ration since Aadhaar is not mandatory, they found out that in their records they had actually mentioned that she was being given the ration, which was not the case. So the lack of awareness and the fact that people are entitled to receive the benefits irrespective of Aadhaar is something that is being misused by dealers. This shows how this system has become a barrier for the people, where they are also unaware about the grievance redressal mechanism.

Aadhaar and e-KYC

In this session, the use of Aadhaar for e-KYC verification was discussed The UID strategy document describes how the idea is to link UIDAI with money enabled Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the beneficiaries without any reason or justification for the same. It was highlighted by one of the participants how the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) believed that making Aadhaar compulsory for e-KYC and several other banking services was a violation of the Money Laundering Act as well as its own rules and standards, however, later relaxed the rules to link Aadhaar with bank accounts and accepted its for e-KyC with great reluctance as the Department of Revenue thought otherwise. It was mentioned how allowing opening of bank accounts remotely using Aadhaar, without physically being present, was touted as a dangerous idea. However, the restrictions placed by RBI were suddenly done away with and opening bank accounts remotely was enabled via e-KYC.

A speaker emphasised that with emerging FinTech services in India being tied with Aadhaar via India Stack, the following concerns are becoming critical:

With RBI enabling creation of bank accounts remotely, it becomes difficult to to track who did e-KYC and which bank did it and hold the same accountable.
The Aadhaar Act 2016 states that UIDAI will not track the queries made and will only keep a record of Yes/No for authentication. For example, the e-KYC to open a bank account can now be done with the help of an Aadhaar number and biometric authentication. However, this request does not get recorded and at the time of authentication, an individual is simply told whether the request has been matched or not by way of a Yes/No [11]. Though UIDAI will maintain the authentication record, this may act as an obstacle since in case the information from the aadhaar database does not match, the person would not be able to open a bank account and would only receive a yes/no as a response to the request.
Further, there is a concern that the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System being implemented by the National Payment Corporation of India (NCPI) would allow effectively hiding of source and destination of money flow, leading to money laundering and cases of bribery. This possible as NCPI maintains a mapper where each bank account is linked (only the latest one). However, Aadhaar number can be linked with multiple bank accounts of an individual. So when a transaction is made, the mapper records the transaction only from that 1 account. But if another transaction takes place with another bank account, that record is not maintained by the mapper at NCPI since it records only transactions of the latest account seeded in that. This makes money laundering easy as the money moves from aadhaar number to aadhaar number now rather than bank account to bank account.

Endnotes

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/uidai-and-welfare-services-exclusion-and-countermeasures-aug-27.

[2] See: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/report-on-understanding-aadhaar-and-its-new-challenges.

[3] See: https://uidai.gov.in/beta/images/the_aadhaar_act_2016.pdf.

[4] See: http://scroll.in/latest/816343/aadhaar-numbers-may-soon-be-compulsory-to-book-railway-tickets.

[5] See: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/linking-bpl-ration-card-with-aadhaar-made-mandatory/article9094935.ece.

[6] See: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-scam-Bihar-to-link-exams-to-Aadhaar/articleshow/54000108.cms.

[7] See: http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/cs-calls-for-early-steps-to-link-aadhaar-to-ac.html.

[8] See: http://www.cag.gov.in/sites/default/files/audit_report_files/Union_Commercial_Compliance_Full_Report_25_2016_English.pdf.

[9] See: http://petroleum.nic.in/docs/lpg/LPG%20Control%20Order%20GSR%20718%20dated%2026.09.2011.pdf.

[10] See: http://judis.nic.in/temp/494201232392013p.txt.

[11] Section 8(4) of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 states that "The Authority shall respond to an authentication query with a positive, negative or any other appropriate response sharing such identity information excluding any core biometric information."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/workshop-report-uidai-and-welfare-services-august-27-2016

Right to Food Campaign, Ranchi Convention, 2016

sumandro — 2019-03-16T04:40:52Z

The Right to Food Campaign held its 2016 Convention in Ranchi during September 23-25, 2016. While three years have elapsed since the passage of the National Food Security Act, despite improvements in the Public Distribution System (PDS), large implementation gaps remain. This is what the Convention focused on, and gathered researchers and campaigners from across the country to share experiences and case studies on effectiveness and exclusions from the PDS. Sumandro Chattapadhyay took part in a session of the Convention to discuss how UID-linked welfare delivery is being rolled out across key programmes like provision of pension and rationed distribution of essential commodities, and their impact on people's right to welfare services.

Right to Food Campaign: Website.

Right to Food Campaign: Cash Transfers and UID: Our Main Demands.

Ranchi Convention, 2016: Programme.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/right-to-food-campaign-ranchi-convention-2016

Centre for Internet and Society

Press Release, March 11, 2016: The Law cannot Fix what Technology has Broken!

Key Issues

1. Identification without Consent

2. Fallible Technology

Endnote

List of Recommendations on the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 - Letter Submitted to the Members of Parliament

Download the submission letter: PDF.

Text of the Submission

Endnotes

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

Download the infographic: PDF and PNG.

Analysis of Key Provisions of the Aadhaar Act Regulations

Introduction

Unique Identification Authority of India (Transactions of Business at Meetings of the Authority) Regulations[1]

Provision: Sub-Regulation 3.

Observations:

Provision: Sub-Regulation 8 (5)

Observations:

Provision: Sub-Regulation 14 (4)

Observations:

Unique Identification Authority of India (Enrolment and Update) Regulations[4]

Provisions:

Observations:

Provision: Sub-Regulation 32

Observations:

Aadhaar (Authentication) Regulations, 2016[6]

Provisions:

Observations:

Sub-Regulation 11 (1) and (4)

Observations:

Provision: Sub-Regulation 18 (2), (3) and (4)

Observations:

Aadhaar (Sharing of Information) Regulations, 2016 and Aadhaar (Data security) Regulations, 2016[7]

Provision: Sub-Regulation 6 (1)

Observations:

Conclusion

An Urgent Need for the Right to Privacy

Read and sign the open letter.

Text of the Open Letter

Press Release, March 15, 2016: The New Bill Makes Aadhaar Compulsory!

Salient Points in the Aadhaar Bill and Concerns

Aadhaar Bill 2016 Evaluated against the National Privacy Principles

Download the infographic: PDF and PNG.

Aadhaar data leaks not from UIDAI: Centre

Workshop on Democratic Accountability in the Digital Age (Delhi, November 14-15)

Workshop Agenda (PDF)

Background Note (ODT)

Seminar on Understanding Financial Technology, Cashless India, and Forced Digitalisation (Delhi, January 24)

Programme Schedule

09.30 - Registration

10:00 - Introduction to the Seminar & Setting the Context

10:15–11:30 - Session 1 - Understanding the Political Context of FinTech

11:30-11:45 – Tea / Coffee break

11:45-13:15 - Session 2 - How will FinTech Impact the Poor, and Labour and Banking Sector?

13:15-14:00 – Lunch

14:00-15:30 - Session 3 - Understanding the Economic Context of FinTech

15:30-17:00 - Session 4 - Understanding the Architecture of FinTech: Linkages to Aadhaar, IndiaStack etc

17:00 – Tea

"Will the Magic Number Deliver?" - Roundtable on Aadhaar at CSLG, JNU, April 26

Discussion Note

Discussion Format

Directions to Venue

Poster

CIS Submission to TRAI Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks

1. Preliminary

2. General Responses

3. Specific Responses

Q1. Is the architecture suggested in the consultation note for creating unified authentication and payment infrastructure will enable nationwide standard for authentication and payment interoperability?

Q2. Would you like to suggest any alternate model?

Q3. Can Public Wi-Fi access providers resell capacity and bandwidth to retail users? Is “light touch regulation” using methods such as “registration” instead of “licensing” preferred for them?

Q4. What should be the regulatory guidelines on “unbundling” Wi-Fi at access and backhaul level?

Q5. Whether reselling of bandwidth should be allowed to venue owners such as shop keepers through Wi-Fi at premise? In such a scenario please suggest the mechanism for security compliance.

Q6. What should be the guidelines regarding sharing of costs and revenue across all entities in the public Wi-Fi value chain? Is regulatory intervention required or it should be left to forbearance and individual contracting?

Endnotes

Workshop Report - UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures

Introduction

Implementation of the UID Project

Concerns Arising from the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on Implementation of PAHAL (DBTL) Scheme

UID-linked Welfare Delivery in Rajasthan

Unique Identification Authority of India (Transactions of Business at Meetings of the Authority) Regulations^{^[1]}

Unique Identification Authority of India (Enrolment and Update) Regulations^{^[4]}

Aadhaar (Authentication) Regulations, 2016^{^[6]}

Aadhaar (Sharing of Information) Regulations, 2016 and Aadhaar (Data security) Regulations, 2016^{^[7]}