To be honest, Aadhaar makes me nervous! In fact, it always has since the ambitious scheme was announced in 2009 under the Chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani. Truth be told, I only just recently got enrolled for Aadhaar; that too when the IT Department was not letting me file my Income Tax returns sans the Aadhaar or the Enrolment number. It was only then that I finally decided to buckle under pressure.
Now, don’t get me wrong! I am certainly not a terrorist or an illegal immigrant to fear being registered and yet, Aadhaar makes me nervous. Of course, the obvious question then is ‘why’?
First of all, there is no system in the world that is completely flawless. Every system and every scheme is flawed despite the good intentions that back those systems or schemes up. Then again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My cynicism actually stems not only from the security implication in case of a possible data breach or the invasion of privacy, but also in terms of the power such information can provide to the State if it wanted to mess with its citizenry. Let us take a look at these issues separately so that we don’t mix the two issues up.
The first issue is obvious and one that has already been raised in the apex court: that of privacy as a constitutionally-guaranteed right. When the Aadhaar was first announced, it was supposed to be ‘voluntary’. Of course, that is solely on paper. Otherwise, I would have been able to file my income tax returns without an Aadhaar or an enrolment number. Thus, Aadhaar may be a lot of things; voluntary is just not one of them.
The second and a much bigger concern emanates from security concerns concerning a possible data breach. Cyber security is still in its nascent stage and one that most of our politicians fail to understand. When the Equifax data breach happened last month, it exposed private data belonging to a whopping 143 million people. While the implication of this data breach is not going to be obvious immediately but half of the U.S. Population is now left in a vulnerable position.
Closer to home, the story is not much different. In February this year, UIDAI filed a police complaint against Axis Bank, Suvidhaa Infoserve and eMudhra, for illegally storing Aadhaar biometric information which had been used for unauthorised authentication and impersonation. If that doesn’t scare us, I don’t know what will!
Then again, I guess my biggest worry concerns the immense power the State will have if it holds sensitive information pertaining to all citizens. In particular, what happens when it wants to mess with that one particular citizen. What I’m afraid of is that in the coming future, we will be only as safe as our future leaders would want us to be.
Thus, while I admire the government’s intention of tackling the issues of terrorism, multiple/fake identities, illegal immigration, etc., I have serious concerns regarding my security and privacy, especially since now I do have an Aadhaar. Can the government keep me safe?!? Now that is something that only time will tell!
