On the allegations of BJP Puducherry using Aadhaar data for political mileage, the Madras High Court has opined, “It is apparent that the sixth respondent political party may have resorted to a form of campaigning not permissible under the model code of conduct. It is also evident that personal details of voters and citizens may have been obtained by such political party and put to use for campaign purposes.”

The Bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee directed the Election Commission to take “immediate action” if such allegations were true. The court said that it was “unfortunate” that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) accused the petitioner A. Anand (President of the Puducherry State Committee of the Democratic Youth Federation of India) for not having brought the matter to the notice of the relevant authority, instead of trying to ascertain how the personal details of voters may have been leaked from its system.

The petitioner, A. Anand had alleged that Puducherry residents had started receiving messages from BJP Puducherry with an invite link to join WhatsApp groups, that were later found to have been run by persons in other BJP-ruled States. The plea filed by him stated that the Puducherry BJP Unit had gained unauthorised access to the personal data of the residents of Union Territory of Puducherry from the Aadhaar UIDAI database and has been illegally using the data for its own political motive.

The court directed UIDAI to ascertain how certain information about Puducherry residents are being leaked as alleged by the petitioner. The order read, “The Election Commission of India, on the other hand, says that it has to await the outcome of the investigation undertaken by the Cyber Crime Cell. The Election Commission, however, says that it has brought the matter to the notice of the seventh respondent. The seventh respondent should immediately ascertain how such material could have been accessed by a particular political party.”

The Court also noted that the Election Commission issued a notice on March 25, 2021, a day after the writ petition was entertained by Court, “asking all political parties to adhere to the model code of conduct in the sense that no bulk messages should be sent in the Union Territory of Puducherry without obtaining pre-certification from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Puducherry.”

The Election Commission of India submitted before the High Court that following a complaint regarding BJP members sending bulk messages to voters, it had already issued a show-cause notice to the BJP unit on March 8 and further, a report was also given to the Cyber Crime unit, which was investigating the case.

The Commission also submitted that it had to await the outcome of the investigation undertaken by the Cyber Crime Cell and sought to present a preliminary report of the investigation on March 26 during the hearing.

To this, the court said that it was not relevant to look into any preliminary report on investigation, though they hoped that the investigation will be completed as expeditiously as possible and immediate appropriate action taken in accordance with law.  

The matter has now been listed on March 31.

The order may be read here: 

Related:

Madras HC expresses concern over plea alleging BJP Puducherry illegally using Aadhaar data for votes

The post BJP may have accessed personal information for votes in Puducherry: Madras HC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Last year, much before the CAA-NPR-NRC mayhem was unleashed, Amit Shah at a public event had touted the idea of “one card” which would get rid of excessive ID cards like Aadhaar, voter card and such others. He had said that if the Census (he made no mention of NPR back then) was done properly and in the right format, it was possible that there could be just one single card in which all the other cards could reside. This idea of his resembles MNIC to a great extent and hence it is important to understand the background of MNIC and the idea behind it.

What is MNIC?

Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) was first suggested by a 2001 report prepared by an empowered Group of Ministers (eGOM) titled, “Reforming the National Security System”.  This GOM was formed as a response to the K Subramanyam-led Kargil Review Committee which was instituted after the Kargil conflict of 1999.

The GOM report had suggested MNIC to counter the growing threat of illegal migration in India. The eGOM held 27 meetings in all. In order to facilitate its work, it had set up 4 Task Forces one each on Intelligence Apparatus, Internal Security, Border Management and Management of Defence. The report had proposed, among other things, MNIC “commencing with all border districts”.

Kargil Review Committee (KRC)

KRC report highlighted the deficiencies in India’s security management system particularly in the areas of Intelligence, Border Management, and Defence Management.

KRC had urged a thorough and expeditious review of the national security system in its entirety.  It further contended that the proposed review should not be undertaken by an ‘over-burdened bureaucracy’ but by an independent body of credible experts, whether a national commission or one or more task forces or otherwise, as expedient.

Reforming the National Security System – the GOM report

Here are some relevant excerpts from the report:

The report, in order to tackle the issue of illegal immigration which was seen as a major threat to national security, suggested compulsory registration of citizens as well as non-citizens in India. This was to be followed by giving the citizens MNIC and to issue identity cards of a different colour and design to non-citizens.

The report also stated that many people from neighbouring countries were tempted to cross over to India in search of better job opportunities and to prevent this in the future there was a suggestion to introduce “work permit for foreigners”.

For effective action against the illegal migrants, Residence Records of villages in the border districts should be prepared and regularly updated.  This will allow easy identification and detection of illegal immigrants, until such time as the scheme of registration of all nationals and non-nationals is introduced.

The report also spoke about grant of citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, “Children born to illegal immigrants living in India are entitled to claim Indian citizenship by virtue of their birth on Indian soil.  Therefore, in principle, Indian Citizenship Act should be amended prohibiting acquisition of citizenship rights by the children of illegal migrants born in India before 1 August 1987.  This would also meet the stipulations of the Assam Accord.  However, as per the advice of the Ministry of Law, the provision can only be introduced with prospective effect.  The MHA should take necessary action.”

There were also talks of enacting a refugee law in India in consultation with other Ministries which would then pave the way for enacting a law for compulsory registration of all Indian national and non-nationals staying in India, should be enacted.  The report said, “This would help in preparing the National Register of Indian Citizens.”

The report does not explain what does category such as, ’citizen’ or ’non citizen’ exactly entail. Nor does it shed any light on, as to Why a national identity card for all ’citizens’ would solve all the problem of ’illegal immigration’. MNIC  underlines the idea of national membership through one identity, stabilized by one National Identification Number, something which has been historically contested by the dwellers of land, in a variety of ways. The proposal of introduction of MNIC as long back as 2003 indicates the technologically driven desire to stabilize the idea of land and its people and is marked  by a historical anxiety of the rulers to not only know about but also to have a documentary record of the ruled.

Hence, this idea of having an identity card for citizens has been BJP’s agenda since Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s leadership.

MNIC

MNIC is viewed as the government’s first national identity initiative. Pilot locations for the roll-out of the MNIC were prioritised based on factors such as their proximity to India’s borders and the availability of local civil registration data (such as birth and death registration). During enrollment, individuals were required to register their biometrics (photograph and fingerprint scans) and provide extensive personal details such as their marital status, permanent address, visible identification marks, education and a history of family migration. Each MNIC application was physically reviewed and verified by a registration officer before a sixteen-digit National Identity Number (NIN) and an MNIC card could be issued.

The project was initiated in April 2003 in 20 districts of 12 States and 1 Union Territory viz., Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Puducherry covering a population of 30.96 lakh (28.62 lakh, excluding Assam).  The first set of MNIC Cards was issued to residents of Pooth Kurd, Narela on May 26, 2007.

By 2007, the MNIC project was still struggling to reach scale, and was only being piloted in twelve of India’s twenty-nine states. The enrolment and verification process had proven to be inefficient and costly, but more importantly there were concerns that the process was (unintentionally) discriminatory; for a significant portion of the population – especially low-income families and those living in rural areas – providing documents that could prove their identity and citizenship was difficult, if not impossible. In one documented case, four hundred Iranian immigrants that had been settled in West Bengal for at least eighty years (well before the formation of the independent Indian nation-state) were denied citizenship on the basis that they could not provide acceptable documentation that would, in the view of the verification team, sufficiently validate the personal details they provided.

A report prepared by GSM Association titled ‘Aadhaar: Inclusive by Design- a look at India’s National Identity Programme and its role in the JAM Trinity’, had even raised some concerns about NPR (National Population Register) pertaining to privacy, exclusion  (rightful citizens being denied citizenship status) and wrongful inclusion (non-genuine citizens being granted citizenship status). The report also observed that Identity programmes that seek to confer one’s citizenship or eligibility status are inherently less inclusive.

The system gathered personal data of Indian citizens—including gender, age, marital status, permanent address, etc.  MNIC project was then integrated with the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) project or Aadhaar project.

MNIC was also issued to people living along the coastal line in order to improve coastal security in about 3,331 coastal villages. As per a 2007 news report some senior government officials had spoken about the issues faced in determining citizenship, citing “weak document base” for determining citizenship status of individuals in rural areas , especially for agricultural laborers, landless laborers, married females, and individuals not present at their place of residence at the time of enumeration due to reasons like internal migration.

MNIC and NPR

Now this MNIC project which was integrated with Aadhaar is now set to be revived. Union Home Minister has touted the idea of another MNIC like project. The former MNIC was done with the intention of giving out resident identity cards to citizens who get included in the NRC and “different colored cards” to non-citizens. the MNIC proposed now is also to be issued to people determined as citizens.

While NPR will include citizens as well as non-citizens, there will be a “social vetting” that will be carried at the Gram Sabha and Ward Committee level to verify the information declared by the residents. This list will then be made publicly available to invite objections and claims. These objections/claims will be entertained by local registrars and objections can also be raised by law enforcement agencies or the Registrars suo moto (themselves).

The post Multipurpose National Identity Card, recall from 2003 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In the space of one election cycle, authoritarian governments, moneyed elites and fringe hackers figured out how to game elections, bypass democratic processes, and turn social networks into battlefields. Facebook, Google and Twitter – where our politics now takes place – have lost control and are struggling to claw it back. As our lives migrate online, we are gradually moving into a world of datafied citizens and real-time surveillance. The entire political landscape has changed, with profound consequences for democracy. 

Written by Martin Moore, Democracy Hacked: Political Turmoil and Information Warfare in the Digital Age, is a compelling account of how democracy is being disrupted by the tech revolution, and what can be done to get us back on track. The following are excerpts from the chapter “Survellaince Democracy” of the book.

Tembhli, a remote rural village in northern Maharashtra, about 250 miles north of Mumbai, is rarely visited by high-powered politicians or prominent dignitaries. But on Wednesday, 29 September 2010, it found itself hosting not just the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, but the president of Congress, Sonia Gandhi; the chief and deputy chief ministers and the governor of Maharashtra; and the head of the recently established Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani. It was this last figure, the least well known of the distinguished group, who was the reason behind the visit, and who would subsequently play the most important role in its aftermath. Nilekani and the politicians were there to give out the first ten ‘unique identifiers’ to residents of Tembhli. These ten people received their own twelve-digit number, a number that would, from that day forward, distinguish each of them from every other Indian citizen, and indeed – combined with their biometric data – from every other citizen in the world. “With this,” Sonia Gandhi said, “Tembhli has got a special importance in the map of India. People of Tembhli will lead the rest of the country. It is a historic step towards strengthening the people of our nation.”

Governments of all stripes are prone to exaggerated rhetoric, but in this instance, Gandhi was proved right when she proclaimed that “starting from this tiny hamlet, the scheme will reach more than a billion people of this country.” Despite the change of government in 2014, by April 2016 a billion Indians had been allocated their unique identifier. By 2018 the number had exceeded 1.1 billion, out of a total population of just over 1.3 billion. It was, in the words of a Harvard Business School report, a “hugely ambitious project”, “the largest-scale project of its kind in the world”. Aadhaar, as the project was called, was “unique in its scale and ambition”.³ Each Aadhaar identifier included not just a twelve-digit number, but all ten fingerprints, iris scans from both eyes, and a photograph of each person’s face (with the potential for facial recognition later). By combining the number with one element of biometric data, the government believed, it could ensure that every Indian citizen had a single, verifiable, machine-readable identity. With this verifiable identity a citizen could open a bank account, receive welfare or pension payments, pay tax, apply for a driving license, or receive healthcare, regardless of literacy. In a country known for its administrative torpor and tortuous bureaucracy, where – in 2013 – only forty per cent of children’s births were even registered, such a scheme had the potential to let India leapfrog other democratic countries into the digital era, and make government not just digitally enabled but digitally empowered.

Yet this, for critics of the scheme, was one of its many flaws. “Aadhaar marks a fundamental shift in citizen–state relations,” Pranesh Prakash from India’s Centre for the Internet and Society wrote in the Hindustan Times, “from ‘We the People’ to ‘We the Government’.” Civil society activists objected to the government’s enhanced power, and the relative unaccountability of the body running Aadhaar, headed by Nandan Nilekani until 2014. “In effect,” tech developer and activist Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote, “they are beyond the rule of law.” Others had practical objections.

Biometric identification often did not work. A database of this size and importance was bound to attract hackers. Leaks were inevitable. Indeed, the Tribune newspaper in January 2018 revealed that it had been able to buy a service, for 500 rupees (less than $10), that gave it access to any of up to one billion Aadhaar details. Yet such objections were written off as ‘scaremongering’ and Aadhaar critics as “activists of the upper crust, upper class, wine ’n cheese, Netflix-watching social media elite”. On top of which, despite an Indian Supreme Court judgment in August 2017 that affirmed the fundamental right of Indians to privacy, by early 2018 Aadhaar had achieved such momentum as to appear unstoppable. If the government was able to navigate the various legislative challenges to the scheme, then there was also a queue of other nations keen to adopt something similar.+

[…]

As the government pushed Aadhaar towards every interaction the state had with the citizen, evidence mounted of failures in the system.

In the north-eastern state of Jharkhand, an eleven-year-old girl died of starvation after her family stopped receiving their government food ration. Their ration card, the Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy reported, “was not linked to Aadhaar”. The centre also reported on data, taken from the government’s websites, showing that in Rajasthan, where receiving rations was dependent on Aadhaar authentication, between a quarter and a third of people with ration cards did not receive rations between September 2016 and July 2017. In some ration shops, after having spent hours trying and failing to get their fingerprints read by the biometric machines, people lost their temper and smashed the machines on the ground.

Across India there were reports of machines not recognizing fingerprints, or only recognizing them after multiple attempts. Old people’s prints turned out to be more difficult to read, as were those of manual workers and fishermen. Since the system presumes guilt rather than innocence, the burden of proof lies with the citizen, not with the state. To claim a ration, apply for a scholarship or buy a train ticket, you have to prove who you are before receiving it. The obligation lies with the citizen to prove she is not a fraud. Even if she is not, and the failure is not with her but with the system, she pays for the system’s failure, not the government. To dispute a decision made by the machine means going to the nearest large town – often many miles away – and convincing an official that the problem is with the machine or the digital record, not with you. It is not surprising that some people wrecked Aadhaar machines in their rage.

While the system was found to reduce agency in citizens, it empowered those in positions of authority. Central government was able to make public services conditional on authentication by Aadhaar (despite repeated court rulings that Aadhaar be voluntary, not mandatory). This conditionality could then be extended to the level and type of public services available to individuals. In fact, it had to be for many services – distinguishing pensioners from non-pensioners, for example. Yet in this conditionality, there is plenty of scope for harm and abuse. In 2017 the independent media site Scroll.in reported a rising number of HIV-positive patients who were dropping out of treatment programmes because they were required to use their Aadhaar numbers and were fearful of their condition becoming public.

Equally, while Aadhaar itself did not provide any information about caste, ethnicity, religion or language, once it was linked to other databases, most notably the National Population Register, then it became possible to identify people by group. Formal group identification by the state has an ignominious history. During the apartheid era in South Africa, the penultimate number on the South African identity card indicated race. In the Rwandan genocide in 1994, anyone who had ‘Tutsi’ on their identification was liable to be killed. In Nazi Germany in 1938, every Jewish citizen had ‘J’ stamped on their ID cards and passports. In India, where political and religious divisions are closely intertwined, there is good reason to be anxious about new opportunities for group identification.

Thanks to Aadhaar, companies started to build services using unique identification. A series of ‘trust platforms’ emerged, built on top of Aadhaar, where employers – and others – could access and authenticate people’s identity. A company called TrustID advertised itself as “India’s first, unique and comprehensive online verification platform”. Through TrustID an employer could check whether a potential employee had any criminal or civil convictions, or whether that person had a good or bad reputation (based on a news search and social media profiling). The company even encouraged women to check up on potential husbands they had found via marriage websites. Other international companies integrated Aadhaar into existing services. This is similar to the way in which companies work with platforms like Facebook to profile, and target, individuals based on their personal information – except in this instance doing it via the government. All the same questions about trust, privacy, freedom and power arise, with even greater political potency. The state and private companies are in partnership to track citizens constantly and to gather as much data as they can on them – data that they can then use for commercial or political purposes. This opaque, asymmetrical knowledge of the citizen seems like the reverse of what was intended by democratic transparency, especially in the absence of strong privacy and data protection. “Totalitarian states often do this against the wishes of their citizens,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the president of the Centre for Policy Research, writes, yet “in our democracy, our consent is being mobilized to put an imprimatur over more control and arbitrariness.”

In August 2017, the Supreme Court of India came to a unanimous 9–0 decision that Article 21 of the Indian Constitution did guarantee a fundamental right to privacy. As such, it was not lawful for the government to make it mandatory for people to identify themselves using a unique identifier like Aadhaar, except in specific circumstances. To some this looked like a huge blow to the grand project. The Supreme Court decision “raises serious questions about Aadhaar”, lawyer Adarsh Ramanujan argued in India’s Financial Express, and appeared to send “a direction to the central government to create a regime to ensure that privacy rights are not trammelled by other private parties”. The judgment was about privacy broadly, and did not refer to specific cases like Aadhaar, but was seen as the basis from which future challenges to the scheme could be launched. The Modi government, however, appeared to carry on regardless. In October it linked Aadhaar to driving licence applications. By mid-December, the government had made Aadhaar mandatory if citizens wanted to access any of 140 government services.

Nandan Nilekani, who had stepped down as chair of Aadhaar in 2014 in order to become a candidate for the Congress party, railed against those who criticized the scheme. There was, he claimed, an “orchestrated campaign” to malign the system. “I think this so-called anti-Aadhaar lobby is really just a small bunch of liberal elites who are in some echo chamber,” he told an Indian business news channel. Anyway, Nilekani argued, it was too late for the naysayers to stop it. Too many people were now enrolled. It was too integral to the provision of services. Others saw attacks on Aadhaar as political, arguing that Congress was using it for political gain prior to the 2019 election, and that this would backfire. “Aadhaar today is not just a number,” the editor of India’s Economic Times wrote. “The Congress envisaged it as a means of identity but the Modi government has taken it to a different level. It has become a weapon in the hands of the poor and a powerful tool to fight entrenched black money interests. It is now a symbol of anti-corruption, anti-black money drives, a symbol of efficient allocation of welfare benefits.”

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post “Aadhar reduced agency in citizens and empowered those in positions of authority” appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Just then –
A screech, a wail
That says, all heil
The cosmic atoms scurry here and there
My hair stands still, in the middle of air
 
From my balcony
What do I see
One mud pot, two white bedsheets
Three kilo rice, camphor, agarbathis
 
Pssst, they say
What, I enquire
Pass your cigarette lighter
We have to fire the pyre
 
Who is gone?
I stage whisper
It is Chiranjeev Yama-ji!!!
He, who lived in Kalichi?
 
Sandalwood paste
Applied with haste
The tulsi leaves
With vibhuthis
The abhishekam material
Is auspiciously readied
The death procession, starts to exit
After the high priest does his deed
 
I follow them
First left, then right
Men and women
Black and white
Life and afterlife
Atma and Moksha
1 and 0
Everything in harmony
Everything is a binary
So says the writing
In the Book of Destiny
 
We reach the crematorium maidan
Chiranjeev Yama-ji’s feet, face the south
The sentry in his uniform halts us with his lathi
The basti bully is pushed forward by his saathi,
Permission denied, Mere Bhai
Unless you have that – UIDAI
 
Now what sort of gobbledegook is that?
The bully asks, after he has had a spat
No Aadhaar
No death rite
(So don’t fight)
Show pyaar, o yaar
 
The death clerk in a bush-shirt points to a notification. Printed on an eco-solvent latex machine. It is the government signboard. The death clerk says in a high octave: Ladies and Gentlemen. In lieu of the fake deaths and duplicate deaths there has been an epidemic of benami deaths. These benami deaths threaten to destroy our society. It’s devastating our binary integrity. And so, as per Gazette No. 10/2017/F. No. P.12011/11/2016-ES Cell- DoR, all dead atmas have to be linked to Aadhaar. Full Stop!
 
Aadhaar: What be this godly creation?
Aadhaar: Who knows from whence this supreme astra sprang?
Aadhaar: How this celestial body cometh?
Aadhaar: Was it created or did it mutate?
The Most Highest He, who is in highest heaven,
He knows it – or perchance even He knows not
 
We sit outside the deathly gate
We wait to find out Yama Ji’s fate
His skin turns green, his robes are bloody red
Copper eyeballs, they pop out of his head
 
Time ticks
No one is in a hurry
Such is life
When things are binary
 
Mud pots and plastic bags
Cooked rice and green grams
Banana leaves and stale flowers
Darbha grass and agathee leaves
All things, binary
All things dead
Every single decision: 0 or 1
That’s how life becomes … no fun
 
Binary we are
Binary we will be
Binary is reality
Remember: The Eternal Truth
Even if you want to visit the bar
O Humanoid, You need an Aadhaar
 
Meanwhile –
At the Municipal gates
Hate multiplies into hate
Aadhaar is being sold
Hundred times, the rate
 
And Chiranjeev Yama-Ji?
He is trapped by our folly
What happens next, no one knows
We ask each other, at the gate
How long do we have to wait?
Citizens, don’t you know?
Now, what more don’t we know
It’s as simple as doh dooni chaar
You are all trapped here
Till Chiranjeev Yama-ji, gets his Aadhaar
 
Poem by Ramu Ramanathan
Recited by Joy Sengupta

Courtesy: https://aadhaar.fail/
 

The post O, did you know Yama did not have an Aadhaar? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy : factordaily

Wikileaks new Cables about CIA and Aadhaar Data Leakage
On 24th August wikileaks published new cables regarding ExpressLane Project by CIA through its liaison companies. Indians are the one of major victim of this ExpressLane Project because CrossMarch is one of the initial Digital Equipment Provider (DEP) in Aadhaar Project. WikiLeaks Cables says that “ These documents show one of the cyber operations the CIA conducts against liaison services — which includes among many others the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).The OTS (Office of Technical Services), a branch within the CIA, has a biometric collection system that is provided to liaison services around the world — with the expectation for sharing of the biometric takes collected on the systems. But this ‘voluntary sharing’ obviously does not work or is considered insufficient by the CIA, because ExpressLane is a covert information collection tool that is used by the CIA to secretly exfiltrate data collections from such systems provided to liaison services. ExpressLane is installed and run with the cover of upgrading the biometric software by OTS agents that visit the liaison sites. Liaison officers overseeing this procedure will remain unsuspicious, as the data exfiltration disguises behind a Windows installation splash screen. The core components of the OTS system are based on products from Cross Match, a US company specializing in biometric software for law enforcement and the Intelligence Community. The company hit the headlines in 2011 when it was reported that the US military used a Cross Match product to identify Osama bin Laden during the assassination operation in Pakistan”. Cross Match was one of the first multi-national Bio-metric Service Provider had secured the approval of UIDAI for the collection of Bio-Metric data of the citizens in the country in Aadhaar Scheme. On 2011 October Company had bagged the said approval and on September 2010 company received Provisional Certificate for use of UID program. GGI News Reports thatIn 2012, Francisco Partners acquired Cross Match Technologies Inc. Infamous Israeli Cyber Weapon group Called NSO is the one of portfolio company of Francisco Partners. This Multi-Giant links will helps to determine the depth of Multi Billion Dollar Industry of Bio-Metric. GGI News adds as per the new analysis by the research and market India’sBio-metric Market will hit by $2 Billion in 2018. Cross Match’s Indian partner is a Noida based Smart id. Since 2014 Smart id had carried out Bio-Metric Data Collection of 1.2 Million Peoples of the country. As per Wiki Cables these 1.2 Million Bio-Metric Data is now with CIA.

USA Patriot Act and Privacy of Individuals Around the Globe
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks prompted congressional action on many fronts, including passage of the United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT)Act. After the enactment of said act by Bush Administration, people outraged around the world and made protests against the unilateral movement by US Government. Many of provisions in the Patriot Act will curtail the privacy of individuals as well as American Citizens and others around the world. According to Patriot Act the Organizations within the states are bound to share their Cloud,Centralized Data Servers and other tangible and intangible sophisticated documents with federal agencies like NSA,FBI etc. Title II of the Act, Enhanced Surveillance Procedures, includes provisions that affect monitoring of Internet activities. Section 210 expands the scope of subpoenas for records of electronic communications to include records commonly associated with Internet usage, such as session times and duration. Section 211 clarifies that cable companies offering Internet services are subject to 18 U.S.C. ch. 119 (Wire and Electronics Interception and Interception of Oral Communications), 18 U.S.C. ch. 121 (Stored Wire and Electronic Communications and Transactional Records Access), and 18 U.S.C. ch. 206 (Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices)in their provision of those services. Cable companies had sought, in particular, to clarify their obligationswith regard to release of personally identifiable information about subscribers and whether they were required to notify the subscriber that the information had been requested by a governmental entity as required under the 1992 Cable Act. Under this section, no notification is required, but disclosure specifically does not include a subscriber’s video programming choices. Peter Swire, who served as privacy counselor at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton Administration, worries that the Act does not include sufficient provisions to deal with potential abuses by law enforcement of the new authorities granted in the Act. Title II of the Patriot Act, “Enhanced Surveillance Procedures,” expanded the reach of FISA ( Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court Orders to allow the FBI to obtain “an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism and clandestine intelligence activities.”

How did Indians reach in this Land Mark Judgement over Privacy and What is Next ?
In 2015 during Aadhaar petition J. Chelameswar’s 3 members bench struck on Kharak singh and M.P Sharma Case precedents,and they directed the question whether Right to Privacy is Fundamental Right or not to Constitution bench. CJI has the duty to constitute constitution bench but Honorable court sit idle. After 2 years gap again Aadhar petitions came before J Chalameswar’s bench and bench requested petitioners and Union of India to mention it before CJI seeking setting up of the Constitution Bench at the earliest, so as to decide the main matter referred to it in August 2015 . Then CJI constituted 5 members constitution bench in July. The first day of argument The Attorney General for India pointed that the existence of a fundamental right of privacy is in doubt in view of two decisions : the first M P Sharma v Satish Chandra, District Magistrate, Delhi was rendered by a Bench of eight judges and the second, in Kharak Singh v State of Uttar Pradesh was rendered by a Bench of six judges. Each of these decisions, in the submission of the Attorney General, contained observations that the Indian Constitution does not specifically protect the right to privacy. On July 18 CJI JS Khehar constituted nine members constitution bench to decide whether Right to Privacy is Fundamental Right or not. Now 9 bench over ruled precedent cases with upholding J Subba Rao’s minority Judgement in Kharak Singh and marked Right to Privacy as fundamental Right. Now this unanimous judgement by constitution bench will help in Aadhaar Matter (J.Puttaswamy (retired) & Ors v Union of Inida) which is going to be start on September 5 before J Chalemeswar’s bench. It is the duty of respondents ( Central and other respondents like UIDAI,TRAI etc) to prove Aadhar doesn’t invade privacy and for now Petitioners have edge in Aadhaar Case. The impact over Right to Privacy Judgement don’t settle within the contours of digital privacy in modern era and will percolate into other infamous Statutes which prevents Cow slaughter across the various states in the country and Sections like 377 in Indian Penal Code.

“Privacy, in its simplest sense, allows each human being to be left alone in a core which is inviolable. Yet the autonomy of the individual is conditioned by her relationships with the rest of society. Those relationships may and do often pose questions to autonomy and free choice. The overarching presence of state and non state entities regulates aspects of social existence which bear upon the freedom of the individual” these are the words of J DY Chandrachud from the recent Judgement on Privacy. Here court clearly affirms that Right to Privacy is an inalienable right of citizen under Indian Constitution. Through this land mark verdict by Supreme Court of India protected Individual Privacy is under Part III of the Constitution. This will allow the peoples to seek Constitutional Remedies through Article 32 and 226 respectively in Supreme Court and High Court. The revelation by Wiki Leaks is again unveiled the vulnerability of centralized Bio-Metric Data System and interest of Private players in the largest Bio-Metric project of the world. Privacy is an inevitable element for the bodily integration of individual and any act to derogate the right will be the catacomb of physical existence.
(Author is a Law Student in Government Law College, Thrissur , Kerala and member of Citizen Collective for Digital Rights and Privacy)

Reference :

1. Marcia S. Smith, Jeffrey W. Seifert, Glenn J. McLoughlin, and John Dimitri Moteff : Resources, Science, and Industry DivisionThe Internet and the USA PATRIOT Act: Potential Implications for Electronic Privacy, Security, Commerce, and Government
2. Swire, Peter. If Surveillance Expands, Safeguard Civil Liberties. Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed, October 21, 2001
3. https://www.mayerbrown.com/publications/the-usa-patriot-act-and-the-privacy-of-data-stored-in-the-cloud-01-18-2012/
4. https://wikileaks.org/vault7/#ExpressLane
5. www.livelaw.in
6. JUSTICE K S PUTTASWAMY (RETD.) AND ANR V UNION OF INDIA AND ORS WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO 494 OF 2012
7. http://gginews.in/cia-spies-access-aadhaar-database/

The post Big Brother Reading Your Aadhaar Data appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Top IAS men, including 2 from Gujarat Denounce Aadhar as a Smokescreen for Corruption appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Sign the petition here.

The post Say NO to Aadhar – sign the petition appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: rightlog.in

Speaking in Washington on 12 October, Nandan Nilekani , the man behind Aadhar, said that “It has also saved the government about $9 billion in fraud and wastage because by having that unique number you eliminate fakes and duplicates from your beneficiary and employee list.”

This and a similar statements repeated endlessly by many supporters of the Modi government that Aadhar had saved $11 billion, have acquired a Goebbelsian traction, swallowed by mainstream media unquestioningly . IT minister R.S. Prasad claimed the same thing on September 8, 2016, the CEO of Aadhar authority (UIDAI) AB Pandey repeated it on May 13, 2017. By that time, the government had begun to really believe it and so it asserted the same $11-billion figure in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on April 27, 2017 during the right to privacy hearings.

The truth is far from this.

As has been shown by food rights activist from IIT Delhi Reetika Khera    the figure of $11 billion was popularised by the World Bank in its 2016 World Development Report. What is their source of information?

They lifted the figure from a Washington based think tank called Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) housed at the World Bank itself. But in doing so, the mandarins of World Bank made a fatal slip. The CGAP study clearly says that the “value of transfers” is Rs.70,000 crore ($11.3 billion) per annum. They are talking about all the money that is directly being transferred to beneficiaries in schemes like MGNREGA, NSAP, JSY, LPG subsidy and scholarships for SC/ST.

The government converted “value of transfers” to “potential savings”. The rest is history.

Let’s take a charitable view and assume that some savings have taken place. How much? There is no firm data but several estimates are periodically floated only to perish under the microscope.

As  TheWire   has pointed out claims on savings made by shifting LPG subsidy to direct cash transfers have been debuked by the CAG, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and various analyses published in the EPW. In fact the govt. has said in Parliament that fall in LPG subsidies were due to various factors including dipping crude oil prices, the GiveItUp campaign, etc.

The World Bank has said   that it extrapolated from other studies to “estimate” that 11-14% savings took place on the govt.’s total expenditure on welfare programmes, which was $70-100 billion.  It calls this estimate “potential” savings.

But by the time it takes off from Washington and lands in New Delhi, all caveats are blown away, as are dodgy assumptions. The Modi government, innocent of data and evidence, takes it as gospel. And so do its camp followers.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 

The post The great “Aadhaar-is-saving-billions” hoax appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Aadhar Data is available to USA’s infamous CIA and therefore much more than privacy, India’s soveregnity stands compromised.

Today, August 24, WikiLeaks published secret documents from the ExpressLane project of the CIA. These documents reveal details of one of the cyber operations the CIA conducts against liaison services — which includes among many others the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

According to Wikileaks, the OTS (Office of Technical Services), a branch within the CIA, has a biometric collection system that is provided to liaison services around the world — with the expectation for sharing of the biometric takes collected on the systems. But this ‘voluntary sharing’ obviously does not work or is considered insufficient by the CIA, because ExpressLane is a covert information collection tool that is used by the CIA to secretly exfiltrate data collections from such systems provided to liaison services.

ExpressLane is installed and run with the cover of upgrading the biometric software by OTS agents that visit the liaison sites. Liaison officers overseeing this procedure will remain unsuspicious, as the data exfiltration disguises behind a Windows installation splash screen.The core components of the OTS system are based on products from Cross Match, a US company specializing in biometric software for law enforcement and the Intelligence Community. The company hit the headlines in 2011 when it was reported that the US military used a Cross Match product to identify Osama bin Laden during the assassination operation in Pakistan.

So is the Indian government by insisting on Aadhar compromising India’s core sovereignity?

The core components of the OTS system are based on products from Cross Match, a US company specializing in biometric software for law enforcement and the Intelligence Community. The company hit the headlines in 2011 when it was reported that the US military used a Cross Match product to identify Osama bin Laden during the assassination operation in Pakistan.

Cross Match certified by UIDAI

Cross Match was one of the first suppliers of biometric devices certified by UIDAI for Aadhaar program. The company received the Certificate of Approval from the Indian Government in 2011. Cross Match received the Certificate of Approval for its Guardian fingerprint capture device and the I SCAN dual iris capture device on October 7, 2011. Both systems utilize Cross Match’s patented Auto Capture feature, which quickly captures high-quality images with minimal operator involvement.

The Certificate of Approval, was issued after completion of all tests required to demonstrate compliance with the quality requirements of UIDAI. The certification body consists of the Standardization, Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate for the Government of India’s Department of Information Technology (DIT) and the UIDAI. The tests performed by the STQC included the following criteria: Physical & Dimensional, Image Quality, Environmental (Durability/Climatic), Safety, EMI/EMC, Security, Functional, Performance, Interoperability, Ease of Use & Ergonomics.

Majority of the UIDAI certified enrollment agencies use Cross Match devices across India. Cross Match was also the first company to receive the Provisional Certificate for use in the UID program in September, 2010. Video featuring the Cross Match Guardian and I SCAN devices has been taken down from the official UIDAI website.

Francisco Partners

In 2012, Francisco Partners acquired Cross Match Technologies Inc. The company has more than 5,000 customers worldwide and over 250,000 products deployed in over 80 countries. Cross Match’s customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. State Department and various state and local governments; as well as numerous foreign governments and law enforcement agencies. It also provides biometric solutions to customers in transportation, critical infrastructure, financial services, education, and healthcare sectors.
One of Francisco Partners portfolio company is an Israeli cyber weapons dealer called NSO Group. The company’s Pegasus iOS malware was linked to attacks on iPhones of a prominent UAE activist and a Mexican journalist.

Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and mobile security firm Lookout raised questions about the ethics of NSO Group, a government spyware provider founded by an alum of Israel’s vaunted intelligence agencies. Francisco Partners bought its stake in the company for $120 million in 2014. Citizen Lab uncovered NSO’s Pegasus malware targeting iPhones of a Mexican journalist and a UAE activist. The same day, FORBES reported that Francisco Partners added Circles to its roster of investments, another Israeli-founded surveillance firm, which sold contentious gear to hack a part of global telecoms networks, known as SS7. That cost the private equity firm $130 million, a source close to the deal told FORBES.

Spying on Governments, Activists & Journalists

Francisco Partners also ran Turkey’s spy operations by selling its deep packet inspection product for surveillance. Deep packet inspection enables surveillance at the outset. Its very purpose is to open up “packets” of data flying across networks and inspect them to check if they should pass. DPI has made headlines for controversial use cases. China, for instance, likes to use DPI in its infamous censorship and surveillance systems. Sunnyvale, California-based Blue Coat Systems, in which Francisco Partners was a significant investor, saw its DPI technology censoring the internet in Syria in 2011, just as the civil war was erupting. Human rights activists looked on agog, but Blue Coat later said resellers were to blame and that it had not given permission for the technology to be shipped to the country. One reseller was later slapped with a maximum fine of $2.8 million by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). (Francisco Partners also has stakes in Barracuda Networks and Dell Software, which both ship DPI products).

Aadhaar’s biometric pioneer

The foundation of the Aadhaar program is based on biometric and demographic data that is unique to each citizen. This data can only be collected by leveraging biometric devices and compatible software – the second and third stages of the Aadhaar value chain.

Cross Match’s Indian partner for the UID program is Smart Identity Devices Pvt. Ltd. (Smart ID). Smart Identity Devices, or Smart ID, has been the biometric pioneer and leader for the Aadhaar program. Smart ID provides biometric technology, smart card, and information and communication technology products and services for numerous sectors, such as financial services, logistics, government, and IT security. Launching commercial operations in 2008, Smart ID is based in Noida, India and is led by Sanjeev Mathur. The company’s devices are being used by enrollment agencies across India for the Aadhaar program.
 

According to a recent study by Research and Markets, India’s biometrics market is forecast to hit about $2 billion by 2018.

Smart ID’s products and services range from biometric products, to mobile application solutions, to services such as Aadhaar enrollment, training, project management, IT hosting, and business correspondent management. As of 2014, Smart ID was able to carry out enrollment activities across India in states such as, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bangal, and Madhya Pradesh. Smart ID has already enrolled more than 1.2 million citizens into the Aadhaar program through its enrollment agencies. In July 2011, the UIDAI recognized Smart ID as being one of the three best enrollment agencies in Aadhaar for enrolling more than 25 million citizens in a very short time frame.
The price of a Smart ID Patrol ID fingerprint scanner was approximately $2300 in 2014. And these devices were installed across the country. It would be interesting to know how much did the Indian government pay this CIA front company for the exercise. Lets say UIDAI installed 10,000 such bugged CIA devices across the country for enrollment (which is a very conservative estimate), the staggering cost would be 1473554800 Rs.

How CIA agents can access Aadhaar database in Real-time

A number of the CIA’s electronic attack methods are designed for physical proximity. These attack methods are able to penetrate high security networks that are disconnected from the internet, such as police record database. In these cases, a CIA officer, agent or allied intelligence officer acting under instructions, physically infiltrates the targeted workplace. The attacker is provided with a USB containing malware developed for the CIA for this purpose, which is inserted into the targeted computer. The attacker then infects and exfiltrates data to removable media. For example, the CIA attack system Fine Dining, provides 24 decoy applications for CIA spies to use. To witnesses, the spy appears to be running a program showing videos (e.g VLC), presenting slides (Prezi), playing a computer game (Breakout2, 2048) or even running a fake virus scanner (Kaspersky, McAfee, Sophos). But while the decoy application is on the screen, the underlaying system is automatically infected and ransacked.

Fine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire is used by the agency’s OSB (Operational Support Branch) to transform the requests of case officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks (typically “exfiltrating” information from computer systems) for specific operations. The questionnaire allows the OSB to identify how to adapt existing tools for the operation, and communicate this to CIA malware configuration staff. The OSB functions as the interface between CIA operational staff and the relevant technical support staff.

Among the list of possible targets of the collection are ‘Asset’, ‘Liason Asset’, ‘System Administrator’, ‘Foreign Information Operations’, ‘Foreign Intelligence Agencies’ and ‘Foreign Government Entities’. Notably absent is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals. The ‘Case Officer’ is also asked to specify the environment of the target like the type of computer, operating system used, Internet connectivity and installed anti-virus utilities (PSPs) as well as a list of file types to be exfiltrated like Office documents, audio, video, images or custom file types. The ‘menu’ also asks for information if recurring access to the target is possible and how long unobserved access to the computer can be maintained. This information is used by the CIA’s ‘JQJIMPROVISE’ software to configure a set of CIA malware suited to the specific needs of an operation.

Here is the official training manual that contains the detailed steps for carrying out the installation and configuration of Cross Match for the Aadhaar Enrolment Client. This manual also describes the process of importing master data after downloading it from the UIDAI Admin Portal.

It is remarkable that Aadhaar and Al-Qaeda mean the same thing, which is “foundation” – Manu Joseph pointed out this tweetable fact in his piece on Live Mint. What we might add is that it is also remarkable that both Aadhaar and Al Qaeda are illegitimate sons of the same mother!

By ararngement with GGI News

Related Stories:

1. India among top targets of spying by NSA
2. CIA Activities in India

The post How CIA Can Access India’s Biometric Aadhar Database: Indian Sovereignity Under Threat? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Gautam Bhatia (@gautambhatia88) tweeted at 10:05 AM on Wed, Jul 19, 2017:

The post Aadhar Case: Nine-judge Constitution Bench Begins Hearing on Right to Privacy, In Tweets appeared first on SabrangIndia.