There was a television ad some time back where a village leader played by Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan cutely decrees that feuding villagers would be known by their mobile numbers rather than names denoting caste or community.
It’s an idea that no longer seems far-fetched.
THE GOVERNMENT of India came out with the bold decision of establishing an authority, namely the National Authority for Unique Identity (ID), headed by Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys, to issue unique ID cards to Indian citizens. Nilekani, for his part, did the right and honourable thing of quitting from his corporate post before undertaking this huge challenge.
The budget has allocated Rs120 crores for this job also and the stage is set for this work to begin. Nilekani himself has said that first batch of such cards will be made available for distribution sometime in the last month of this year. Secretarial infrastructure for this enormous task is being set up and personnel necessary for secretarial back-up is being provided. One RS Sharma, an IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, has been made second man in this authority. We hope that things move at a smooth pace.
Nilekani has hinted that each citizen will be allotted a unique number and that the details will be tamper-proof. Such citizen cards have become very necessary in view of the growing problem of illegal immigration especially from countries like Bangladesh and Nepal, and also the threat of terrorism. A task of such a magnitude is not without its hitches, especially in the face of the harsh reality of vote bank politics.
Will it be master card of all cards?
Coming to the technicalities of this card, he said that this Unique ID would not replace existing ID cards or numbers which Indians have been issued in documents like passports, ration cards, PAN cards, etc. This means that these cards shall remain in existence alongside the proposed Unique ID. Nilekani clarified that the Unique ID numbers may be used in other numbers or cards issued by various authorities for specific purposes. Nilekani's clarification has cleared doubts from the minds of billions of common people who thought that this proposed Unique ID shall relieve them of carrying and preserving dozens of other cards in their shelves or lockers.
Cards, cards and cards
In our country it is difficult to even count that how many documents one citizen is required to keep for managing day-to-day concerns. Even people living below the poverty line (BPL) poor are issued ‘job cards’ to be eligible for employment under NREGS. The government says it is committed to providing them with essential commodities like rice, wheat, and cooking oil, either at subsidised rate or free of cost. To this end, BPL families are issued cards like white cards, red cards, yellow cards - the colour of these cards change with the government and in some cases changes with the collector. People living above the poverty line (APL) are also entitled to food grains from Public Distribution System (PDS) shops; colourful cards have been issued towards this end as well.
Apart from these social security cards, almost every department issues cards or numbers to citizens for specific purposes. For instance, the IT department issues PAN cards, the sales tax department of provincial governments issues various numbers to businessmen to carry out their businesses. Apart from this, the common citizen has to furnish a host of other ID proofs when one has to open a bank account or applies for a driving license. In a nutshell, a law-abiding citizen has been asked to keep innumerable documents with him.
Risk Along With Cards?
Privacy is a key concern with respect to the UID scheme as all of an individual’s personal information will be stored in one database where the possibility of corruption and exploitation of data is far greater than when having the information disbursed. Several foreign citizens of Indian origin are living in India as Indians. They act as Indians such that they can easily open bank accounts, get phone connections, Driving license, PAN card etc. These people would be in trouble when UID is implemented.
Risks that arise from this centralisation include possible errors in the collection of information, recording of inaccurate data, corruption of data from anonymous sources, and unauthorised access to or disclosure of personal information.Other countries with national identification systems have confronted numerous problems with similar risks such as trading and selling of information, and India, which has no generally established data protection laws such as the U.S. Federal Privacy Statute or the European Directive on Data Protection, is ill-equipped to deal with such problems. The centralised nature of data collection inherent in the UID proposal only heightens the risk of misuse of personal information and therefore potentially violates privacy rights. In consideration of the risks involved in the creation of a centralized database of personal information, it is imperative that such a programme not be established without the proper mechanisms to ensure the security of each individual’s privacy rights. Unfortunately, India’s proposed UID programme lacks any provision for judicial review at the present time. Without credible and independent oversight, there is a risk of ‘mission creep’ for UIDs; the government may add features and additional data to the UIDS database bureaucratically and reflexively, without reevaluating the effects on privacy in each instance.
Will it be the last card?
When TN Seshan had assumed charge as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of the Election Commission of India (ECI), he came out with an idea of providing Voting ID cards to check bogus voting and cleanse the electoral system. At that point of time, it was conceived that this ID cards would be multiple-purpose and would replace all other cards which are being used for identification and establishing citizenship claims. This idea was widely appreciated initially, and people thought that perhaps preparation of these cards would put to an end all the hardships they faced in this regard. The campaign began with huge fanfare and enthusiasm. Some states did magnificently well with regards to percentage of ID cards prepared. Unfortunately, even after two decades, the process has not seen completion. Needless to say, the exercise has seen large-scale irregularities and factual errors in entries.
We need not be pessimistic about this programme however. We hope that all goes well but the challenge is that Nilekani will have to depend on imperfect data to begin with. Only time will tell what modus operandi Nilekani would resort to and adopt in order to make this Unique ID error-free and final.
We hope that this will be the last such exercise.
