Now opposition parties should promise
destruction of database of biometric features created so far
Promoters of Biometric aadhaar and NPR emerged
as killers of privacy unlike heroes like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and
Bradley Manning
March 24, 2014 New Delhi: Hearing the Special Leave to Appeal
(Criminal) No(s).2524/2014, which has been linked with the previous
case Writ Petition (Civil) 494 of 2012, the Supreme
Court bench of Dr. Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice J.
Chelameswar passed an order that exposes the illegality of the
unscientific exercise of indiscriminate biometric data collection by Planning
Commission's UIDAI, Home Ministry's Registrar General of India for Aadhaar
number and National Population Register (NPR) and other government and private
agencies.
Supreme Court has passed this order asking
Government of India to delink all programs from biometric aadhaar. Non-Congress
political parties have denounced biometric aadhaar as a case of fraud and a
national betrayal. The same holds true for NPR.
Welcoming the order, Citizens Forum for Civil
Liberties (CFCL) demands that the opposition parties should promise that new
government after the Lok Sabha elections will destroy the illegal and
illegitimate database of biometric features as has been done in UK and other
countries.
Notably, even as data thieves and brokers are
feeding memory of online companies, the dictum “Internet never forgets” faces
challenge from legislatures in USA which are grappling with Do Not Track Me
Online Act and European General Data Protection Regulation that includes right
to be forgotten. The European Parliament passed the regulation on March 12,
2014. In the absence of any regulatory resistance, data mining mafia is on the
prowl in India through aadhaar and NPR. The marriage of internet with biometric
data consequents in the death of privacy and democratic rights.
Biometric data itself has scientifically been
proven to be 'inherently fallible' especially because of constant decay of
biological material in human body. Global experience demonstrates that the
trust in junk science of biometrics is misplaced. The stolen biometric passport
of a passenger in the missing Malaysian airliner has exposed its claims for
good.
The incident of two of the 239 passengers who
were on the Malaysian airliner that disappeared on March 8, 2014 between Kuala
Lumpur and Beijing having used stolen European passports based on biometric
data including electronically stored fingerprints and facial images merits
attention. It is this very biometric technology which is the basis of biometric
unique identification (UID)/aadhaar number and National Population Register
(NPR).
In post-independent India, except for the
Emergency period never was privacy under such unprecedented assault.
In the light of these developments there is a
compelling need to explore the following questions:
1.
What is the technological basis of 12 digit unique identification (UID)/aadhaar
number and NPR?
2.
What is the basis of the editorial claims like “privacy issues can be take care
of once supporting legislation is in place” be considered defensible. Is this
what is called putting the cart before the horse?
Is there a biological material in the human
body that constitutes biometric data immortal, ageless and permanent? Besides
working conditions, humidity, temperature and lighting conditions also impact
the quality of biological material used for generating biometric data. Both
aadhaar and NPR are based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that
there are parts of human body likes fingerprint, iris, voice etc” that does not
age, wither and decay with the passage of time.
In a RTI reply dated October 25, 2013, UIDAI
shared its contract agreement with Ernst & Young states in a most startling
disclosure from the contract agreement is its admission that “biometric systems
are not 100 % accurate”. It admits that “uniqueness of the biometrics is still
a postulate.” In an admission that pulverizes the very edifice on which
UID/aadhaar and the NPR rests, it writes, “The loss in information due to
limitations of the capture setup or physical conditions of the body, and due
(to) the feature representation, there is a non-zero probability that two
finger prints or IRIS prints coming from different individuals can be called a
match.”
This is underlined in bold letters in the
contract agreement. In simple words, “non-zero probability that two finger
prints or IRIS prints” turning out to be a match means that there is a
probability that biometric data of two different individuals can be identical.
The contract agreement states, “the Unique ID
will be a random 12-digit number with the basis for establishing uniqueness of
identity being biometrics”. The agreement further states, “we will provide a
Unique Identity to over 113.9 crore people.” This is evidently a fraudulent
claim because UIDAI with which the agreement has been signed has mandate to
provide Unique Identity to only 60 crore residents of India and not to 113.9
crore people.
A report “Biometrics: The Difference Engine:
Dubious security” published by The Economist in its 1 October 2010 issue
observed “Biometric identification can even invite violence. A motorist in
Germany had a finger chopped off by thieves seeking to steal his exotic car,
which used a fingerprint reader instead of a conventional door lock.” This
reveals the frightening ramifications of using biometrics as a basis for
identification.
Another report “Biometric Recognition:
Challenges and Opportunities” concluded that the current state of biometrics is
‘inherently fallible’. That is one of the findings of a five-year study was
jointly commissioned by the CIA, the US Department of Homeland Security and the
Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.
As to privacy, in the contract agreement
between the President of India for UIDAI, as purchaser and L-1 Identity
Solutions Operating Company, and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd accessed through
RTI at clause 15.1 it is stated, "By virtue of this Contract, M/s
Accenture Services Pvt Ltd/Team of M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd may have
access to personal information of the Purchaser and/or a third party or any
resident of India, any other person covered within the ambit of any legislation
as may be applicable." The purchaser is President of India through
UIDAI. The clause 15.3 of the agreements reads, "The Data shall be
retained by Accenture Services Pvt Ltd not more than a period of 7 years as per
Retention Policy of Government of India or any other policy that UIDAI may
adopt in future." This clearly implies that all the biometric data
of Indians which has been collected so far is now available to US Government
and French Government.
In “Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding
to the surprising failure of Anonymisation”, a 77 page long study by Paul
Ohm Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School illustrates
how central identity databases facilitate the reverse audit trail of personal
information. This paper underlines that the assumption of robust anonymization
of electronic identity has been blown up, “casting serious doubt on the power
of anonymization, proving its theoretical limits…”
Sam Pitroda’s public information
infrastructure (PII) is tagging people, tagging places, tagging programmes etc
to connect 2.50 lakh Panchayats all over the country. UID/aadhaar and NPR of
Chandramouli are subsets of this program. Ever wondered as to why the votaries
of privatization of every imaginable natural resource ‘for public welfare’ have
become advocates of centralization of biological information of Indians ‘for public
welfare.’ The rationale for the stateization of personal sensitive information
of Indian residents and citizens appears dubious.
Not surprisingly, Government's own Draft
Discussion Paper on Privacy Bill stated, “Data privacy and the need to protect
personal information is almost never a concern when data is stored in a
decentralized manner" unlike UIDAI, NPR and PII.
Human body came under assault as a result of
forced vasectomy of thousands of men under the notorious family planning
initiative of Sanjay Gandhi. Nilekani and his ilk have acted worse than Sanjay
Gandhi in putting Indians’ body under the assault of biometric surveillance.
Earlier it appeared strange as to how the
aadhaar cases namely, Writ Petition (Civil) 494 of
2012 W.P(C) NO. 829 of 2013, W.P (C) NO. 932 of 2013, T.C.(C) NO. 152 of
2013, T.C. (C) NO. 151 of 2013, W.P (C) NO. 833 of 2013 and CONMT.PET. (C) NO.144/2014
IN W.P.(C) NO.494/2012 which were listed for hearing on 4th March, 2014
got knocked out from the priority list of hearing, after passing 14 orders and
ongoing hearing in the case ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
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Supreme Court’s previous 14 Orders in the aadhaar case are
as under:
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While whistleblowers like Julian Assange,
Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning have joined the ranks of hall fame as the
defenders of privacy as a basic human right, likes of Nandan Nilekani, C
Chandramouli and Sam Pitroda have joined the hall of infamy with entities like
National Security Agency as killers of privacy. The latter are admittedly in
the business of ‘cloudifying’ databases that has the potential to turn
governments into puppets at least as far as control over database is concerned.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, Member, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties
(CFCL), Mb: 9818089660, E-mail:gopalkrishna1715@gmail.com
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