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> "The stated goal of Aadhaar is noble, of giving every individual an identity, ..." [Semi-offtopic] Just my favorite pet peeve: Identity cannot be given - it'

> "The stated goal of Aadhaar is noble, of giving every individual an identity, ..." [Semi-offtopic] Just my favorite pet peeve: Identity cannot be given - it's an inherent, innate property of the individual. Or a group. So, as I get it, Aadhaar is not an identity, it's a credential ("ID" is not a great term). Government (or anyone else other than oneself) doesn't give anyone an identity, they merely authenticate your identity and issue or certify a credential. Language is a mess, and that's why I felt important to leave this comment - just to put my two cents against all the confusion that already exist out there. I recently saw a joke that says "auth" is short for "it's either authentication or authorization but I don't remember the difference right now" and it seems so relevant :-) And, yes, I believe the term "identity provider" is a perversion of nature - a blatant attempt at what should be called "identity theft" (instead of what the industry calls "identity theft").

alephnerd 2y ago
It is an identity though. That's why it's managed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The Indian government de facto treats Aadhaar as the primary form of identification within India in the aftermath of the inability of Indian forces in Ladakh being unable to identify Pakistani nationals from Indian nationals during the Kargil War, as well as the broken and disjointed identification process in India that used a mix of voter ID rolls, village/panchayat rolls, and other lossy methods.
- drdaeman 2y ago
  > It is an identity though. That's why it's managed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Sorry, I could be wrong, but I cannot agree here. It's an identity document ("ID"), something that documents an identity (so, a credential), not an identity itself. Put simply: identity document ⊂ credential* ≠ identity. I really don't like the term "ID" - specifically because it leads to this kind of confusion (and this leads to all sorts of problems), but it's too well established out there... And I totally get the goal of Aadhaar (or most government-issued identity documents for that matter); my comment was unrelated to India (which is why I marked it as semi-offtopic) but solely regarding the language in the article. *) Note: "credential" is a wider term: all identity documents are a form of credential but not every credential is an identity document. I originally put "=" between ID and credential, but edited it later for clarity.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Fair enough. I think it's a semantic argument, but words can have an overloaded meaning. In colloquial English, identification can be treated as credentialing as well.
    - drdaeman 2y ago
      > I think it's a semantic argument Exactly! And all I wanted to say is "Please don't use harmful semantics, even if a lot of people do so because it's convenient or widespread. Your identity is yours, no one can give it to you or take it from you, it is simply who you are - don't let others believe otherwise and don't let others switch the meaning." Gradual acceptance of such quirks leads to gradual transformation of thought and erosion of identity. And that leads to all sort of bad things.
littlestymaar 2y ago
An “indentity” on this context is the opposite of something innate to an individual: it is the fact that everyone sees you as a single person (as opposed to whatever name you give when introducing yourself), in is fundamentally a social tool. You don't need such an identity to live alone on a desert island, or in a remote village where everyone knows each other, but it's a necessity in highly mobile modern world where you mostly interact with people who know nothing about you except this identity.
- drdaeman 2y ago
  Thank you. I agree that identity a social concept - I'm not sure there is a need for identities without a society. However, I believe you're confusing "identity" and "identity document". Identity document (which is fundamentally different from identity itself) is a social tool too, serving the purpose you've mentioned - consistently identifying someone to the society as a single person. However, what I wanted to point out that it is absolutely not an identity, but rather a credential. That's not how it's typically colloquially called, but that's what it factually and effectively is. (Of course, please let me know if I'm wrong.) Making a passport or some online account an actual identity is a true "identity theft" - an attempt of the modern world to take over human identities. And I really don't like this trend. I can't really put it well, but something about it is deeply unnerving to me, it's just so philosophically wrong. Hope you can see it. Oh, and I specifically want to clarify: absolutely nothing wrong with governments issuing documents, of course! Just please, for the love of all that's still sane in the world, don't call such documents an "identity" - it is really not. And that's the only reason I'm so anal about this - language shapes reality, and identities are already quite messed up, so I thought I'd try to point it out. Sure, I'm pissing against the wind here (and I'm bad at expressing my thoughts well), but I have to try.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    I'm not sure you can really separate concepts and their practical embodiment in this world. To expand on your example, when you get your passport stolen and someone gets a credit in your name, it's not just the document that has been stolen but very well your identity as seen by society: now the entire society (in practice the bankers and law enforcement, maybe your employer or eventually even your neighbors) think that you own the bank some money, and the bank will leverage their legal power to recoup their money from you. And respectively, if the state you live in decides that Aleksei Deaman* doesn't exist, removes all traces of you from official records and declares that all identity document you have are counterfeit ones, then you lose your identity pretty much instantly: your bank will close your bank account, your insurance doesn't cover you, including your housing loan, and your employer cannot keep you because you are now assumed to be an illegal immigrant. At the end of the day your life is pretty much ruined, not just because you've lost your identity papers, but because your entire social identity has been taken away from you. The less familial and based on mutual trust a society is, the more the distinction between “identity” and “identity papers” is blurred. (Not saying that it's a good or a bad thing, that's just what it is).
jace 2y ago
Correct, and my original draft had several paragraphs attempting to explain this, but this article was going into the print edition of the newspaper where they have a very hard limit on space. All of it got dropped. Here is my 2017 attempt at articulating it in the context of Aadhaar: https://medium.com/karana/aadhaars-implicit-patriarchy-a01689a755ba https://medium.com/karana/aadhaars-implicit-patriarchy-a0168...
jace 2y ago
I should also point out that Aadhaar in fact attempts to capture identity itself, not merely issue a document. The founding management articulated it as a "digital atma (soul)", and the card that people use as a document today was originally meant to be a postal probe to confirm the address by delivering a receipt containing the assigned number (the only way to receive it). That ridiculous ambition led to their many stupid choices and to further perversion as no other government department could understand what this was and how to use it, so they all invented their own usage processes – with enough loopholes to severely damage its utility as a credential.

alephnerd 2y ago

It is an identity though. That's why it's managed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The Indian government de facto treats Aadhaar as the primary form of identification within India in the aftermath of the inability of Indian forces in Ladakh being unable to identify Pakistani nationals from Indian nationals during the Kargil War, as well as the broken and disjointed identification process in India that used a mix of voter ID rolls, village/panchayat rolls, and other lossy methods.

drdaeman 2y ago
> It is an identity though. That's why it's managed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Sorry, I could be wrong, but I cannot agree here. It's an identity document ("ID"), something that documents an identity (so, a credential), not an identity itself. Put simply: identity document ⊂ credential* ≠ identity. I really don't like the term "ID" - specifically because it leads to this kind of confusion (and this leads to all sorts of problems), but it's too well established out there... And I totally get the goal of Aadhaar (or most government-issued identity documents for that matter); my comment was unrelated to India (which is why I marked it as semi-offtopic) but solely regarding the language in the article. *) Note: "credential" is a wider term: all identity documents are a form of credential but not every credential is an identity document. I originally put "=" between ID and credential, but edited it later for clarity.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Fair enough. I think it's a semantic argument, but words can have an overloaded meaning. In colloquial English, identification can be treated as credentialing as well.
  - drdaeman 2y ago
    > I think it's a semantic argument Exactly! And all I wanted to say is "Please don't use harmful semantics, even if a lot of people do so because it's convenient or widespread. Your identity is yours, no one can give it to you or take it from you, it is simply who you are - don't let others believe otherwise and don't let others switch the meaning." Gradual acceptance of such quirks leads to gradual transformation of thought and erosion of identity. And that leads to all sort of bad things.

littlestymaar 2y ago

An “indentity” on this context is the opposite of something innate to an individual: it is the fact that everyone sees you as a single person (as opposed to whatever name you give when introducing yourself), in is fundamentally a social tool. You don't need such an identity to live alone on a desert island, or in a remote village where everyone knows each other, but it's a necessity in highly mobile modern world where you mostly interact with people who know nothing about you except this identity.

drdaeman 2y ago
Thank you. I agree that identity a social concept - I'm not sure there is a need for identities without a society. However, I believe you're confusing "identity" and "identity document". Identity document (which is fundamentally different from identity itself) is a social tool too, serving the purpose you've mentioned - consistently identifying someone to the society as a single person. However, what I wanted to point out that it is absolutely not an identity, but rather a credential. That's not how it's typically colloquially called, but that's what it factually and effectively is. (Of course, please let me know if I'm wrong.) Making a passport or some online account an actual identity is a true "identity theft" - an attempt of the modern world to take over human identities. And I really don't like this trend. I can't really put it well, but something about it is deeply unnerving to me, it's just so philosophically wrong. Hope you can see it. Oh, and I specifically want to clarify: absolutely nothing wrong with governments issuing documents, of course! Just please, for the love of all that's still sane in the world, don't call such documents an "identity" - it is really not. And that's the only reason I'm so anal about this - language shapes reality, and identities are already quite messed up, so I thought I'd try to point it out. Sure, I'm pissing against the wind here (and I'm bad at expressing my thoughts well), but I have to try.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  I'm not sure you can really separate concepts and their practical embodiment in this world. To expand on your example, when you get your passport stolen and someone gets a credit in your name, it's not just the document that has been stolen but very well your identity as seen by society: now the entire society (in practice the bankers and law enforcement, maybe your employer or eventually even your neighbors) think that you own the bank some money, and the bank will leverage their legal power to recoup their money from you. And respectively, if the state you live in decides that Aleksei Deaman* doesn't exist, removes all traces of you from official records and declares that all identity document you have are counterfeit ones, then you lose your identity pretty much instantly: your bank will close your bank account, your insurance doesn't cover you, including your housing loan, and your employer cannot keep you because you are now assumed to be an illegal immigrant. At the end of the day your life is pretty much ruined, not just because you've lost your identity papers, but because your entire social identity has been taken away from you. The less familial and based on mutual trust a society is, the more the distinction between “identity” and “identity papers” is blurred. (Not saying that it's a good or a bad thing, that's just what it is).

jace 2y ago

Correct, and my original draft had several paragraphs attempting to explain this, but this article was going into the print edition of the newspaper where they have a very hard limit on space. All of it got dropped. Here is my 2017 attempt at articulating it in the context of Aadhaar: https://medium.com/karana/aadhaars-implicit-patriarchy-a01689a755ba https://medium.com/karana/aadhaars-implicit-patriarchy-a0168...

jace 2y ago

I should also point out that Aadhaar in fact attempts to capture identity itself, not merely issue a document. The founding management articulated it as a "digital atma (soul)", and the card that people use as a document today was originally meant to be a postal probe to confirm the address by delivering a receipt containing the assigned number (the only way to receive it). That ridiculous ambition led to their many stupid choices and to further perversion as no other government department could understand what this was and how to use it, so they all invented their own usage processes – with enough loopholes to severely damage its utility as a credential.