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They ll make it mandatory to access critical services at a later point. Tax payments, utility enrollments stuff like that. That is how they ramped up enrollme

They ll make it mandatory to access critical services at a later point. Tax payments, utility enrollments stuff like that. That is how they ramped up enrollment in Aadhaar UID.

jeswin 10mo ago
In a country with dozens government supplied IDs, Aadhaar has been a godsend for the common man. It's one card to open a bank account, buy a SIM card, apply for a loan, enter an airport, or whatever. I held out for many years due to privacy reasons. In the end, I changed my mind - its just immensely useful to the general public.
- mandeepj 10mo ago
  Congratulations! Your data is already sold out for Rs. 40 in black market! Also, why do you need aadhar to enter airport? Now, the morons in charge are making it mandatory to book a gas cylinder as well. It’s like once a blind suddenly starts seeing, he wants to capture everything.
  - never_inline 10mo ago
    Your data will be sold regardless of whether you have Aadhar or not. You just may not know it.
  - aiauthoritydev 10mo ago
    There is no concept of privacy in India. Your health and banking data is available to literally anyone interested. aadhar is not relevant to that.
- arunabha 10mo ago
  You just demonstrated first hand the point made by GP. When the supreme court ordered the Govt to cease making Aadhaar mandatory, they just responded by adding so much friction to daily life without Aadhaar that most people, including privacy conscious folks like you just gave in.
  - kragen 10mo ago
    Hmm, could you previously open a bank account, buy a SIM card, apply for a loan, or enter an airport without any of those cards? If so, I think it's plausible that the government responded by adding friction to daily life in a way that promoted Aadhaar. If not, they didn't.
    - arunabha 10mo ago
      My point wasn't that no id was required before Aadhaar. It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked. Post Aadhaar, even though all of those IDs are still legal and acceptable under law, the govt has added so much friction on the non Aadhaar path that in practice those IDs are unusable.
      - kragen 10mo ago
        Oh, I see. I misunderstood you. Thank you for explaining.
  - ivell 10mo ago
    The friction already existed long before supreme court orders. No two departments agreed upon what ID they would need for doing the work. It could be rationcard, PAN, passport, driving license etc. Some organizations asked for more than one ID just in case. India just has too many IDs and it is asked for too many use cases. Aadhar made it easier than before. It is really a quality of life improvement. The main issue is government requiring IDs even when it is not usually needed in other countries. Mostly in the name of security. This is the root cause. Aadhar is just the symptom. However Aadhar does enable deeper breaches into privacy due to its unified nature and the way it is validated through government owned infrastructure. There is full tracking possible on all the services that the residents used. If Aadhar was a self sovereign ID, then having a single ID is definitely a good thing. It keeps privacy intact while usable where needed.
    - arunabha 10mo ago
      My point wasn't that no id was required before Aadhaar. It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked. Post Aadhaar, even though all of those IDs are still legal and acceptable under law, the govt has added so much friction on the non Aadhaar path that in practice those IDs are unusable.
- aiauthoritydev 10mo ago
  Indians have this crazy love for idiotic paperwork and nitpicking around paperwork, coupled with mostly low IQ and less educated clerks everywhere it becomes worse. I once submited my PAN and Passport to the bank who refused it claiming the spellings of both names do not match as my middle name was shortened on PAN card. I showed them that my photo is present on both and both cards belong to the same person. But nopes. A friend then showed me that he downloaded aadhar PSD online, put a random invalid number, his photo and a non-existent address on the bank and used it everywhere where people were asking for aadhar without any need. Building and Airport security, Hotel reservation staff, Bus tickets and so on and used real aadhar only for banking and sim cards. He said this simplifies life a lot.
  - posifi 10mo ago
    In India you have to cheat just to get things done at all due to how nonsensically strict things are, which leads to increased scrutiny due to cheating, which leads to more need for non-cheaters to cheat just to get things done, which leads to increased scrutiny due to cheating… As for the low IQ thing no one wants to acknowledge it but check the charts and see that it’s true. Centuries of caste based inbreeding and colonial clerk education will do that to a population. The added toxins in the turmeric will finish the job.
  - captn3m0 10mo ago
    This is the ultimate facade of Digital Identity that UIDAI lets happen while sitting idly by. They put a circular against “Aadhaar photocopies not being valid” only to rescind it the next day because everyone made fun of them. The truth, as you point out, is that Aadhaar in reality is a an “honour based system”, where UIDAI pretends everything is valid and authenticated as long as it gets used everywhere.
sateesh 10mo ago
I think this point is bit orthogonal. The current outrage was largely because the app has to be pre-loaded and there wasn't an option to disable or uninstall it. In the later incarnations, if this is an app which you need to access government services that is less of an issue, though I'm not advocating that this is completely fine. There are already apps like these CoWin (during Covid time), or Digiyatra (despite some of the privacy concerns around it [1]) which many are using. I hope if at all this app gets introduced (in the form you mention) there are larger discussions about permissions and the data access the app would need,and it can be disabled, uninstalled. 1. https://internetfreedom.in/digiyatra-who-owns-your-data/ https://internetfreedom.in/digiyatra-who-owns-your-data/
- spprashant 10mo ago
  Agreed on all points. I don't view these apps as net negative for a country like India which is helped immensely by digitization. My comment was just pointing out that governments have a way to get you install the app if they really need to.
arunabha 10mo ago
Exactly! Politics as usual in India.

They ll make it mandatory to access critical services at a later point. Tax payments, utility enrollments stuff like that. That is how they ramped up enrollment in Aadhaar UID.

jeswin 10mo ago

In a country with dozens government supplied IDs, Aadhaar has been a godsend for the common man. It's one card to open a bank account, buy a SIM card, apply for a loan, enter an airport, or whatever. I held out for many years due to privacy reasons. In the end, I changed my mind - its just immensely useful to the general public.

mandeepj 10mo ago
Congratulations! Your data is already sold out for Rs. 40 in black market! Also, why do you need aadhar to enter airport? Now, the morons in charge are making it mandatory to book a gas cylinder as well. It’s like once a blind suddenly starts seeing, he wants to capture everything.
- never_inline 10mo ago
  Your data will be sold regardless of whether you have Aadhar or not. You just may not know it.
- aiauthoritydev 10mo ago
  There is no concept of privacy in India. Your health and banking data is available to literally anyone interested. aadhar is not relevant to that.
arunabha 10mo ago
You just demonstrated first hand the point made by GP. When the supreme court ordered the Govt to cease making Aadhaar mandatory, they just responded by adding so much friction to daily life without Aadhaar that most people, including privacy conscious folks like you just gave in.
- kragen 10mo ago
  Hmm, could you previously open a bank account, buy a SIM card, apply for a loan, or enter an airport without any of those cards? If so, I think it's plausible that the government responded by adding friction to daily life in a way that promoted Aadhaar. If not, they didn't.
  - arunabha 10mo ago
    My point wasn't that no id was required before Aadhaar. It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked. Post Aadhaar, even though all of those IDs are still legal and acceptable under law, the govt has added so much friction on the non Aadhaar path that in practice those IDs are unusable.
    - kragen 10mo ago
      Oh, I see. I misunderstood you. Thank you for explaining.
- ivell 10mo ago
  The friction already existed long before supreme court orders. No two departments agreed upon what ID they would need for doing the work. It could be rationcard, PAN, passport, driving license etc. Some organizations asked for more than one ID just in case. India just has too many IDs and it is asked for too many use cases. Aadhar made it easier than before. It is really a quality of life improvement. The main issue is government requiring IDs even when it is not usually needed in other countries. Mostly in the name of security. This is the root cause. Aadhar is just the symptom. However Aadhar does enable deeper breaches into privacy due to its unified nature and the way it is validated through government owned infrastructure. There is full tracking possible on all the services that the residents used. If Aadhar was a self sovereign ID, then having a single ID is definitely a good thing. It keeps privacy intact while usable where needed.
  - arunabha 10mo ago
    My point wasn't that no id was required before Aadhaar. It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked. Post Aadhaar, even though all of those IDs are still legal and acceptable under law, the govt has added so much friction on the non Aadhaar path that in practice those IDs are unusable.
aiauthoritydev 10mo ago
Indians have this crazy love for idiotic paperwork and nitpicking around paperwork, coupled with mostly low IQ and less educated clerks everywhere it becomes worse. I once submited my PAN and Passport to the bank who refused it claiming the spellings of both names do not match as my middle name was shortened on PAN card. I showed them that my photo is present on both and both cards belong to the same person. But nopes. A friend then showed me that he downloaded aadhar PSD online, put a random invalid number, his photo and a non-existent address on the bank and used it everywhere where people were asking for aadhar without any need. Building and Airport security, Hotel reservation staff, Bus tickets and so on and used real aadhar only for banking and sim cards. He said this simplifies life a lot.
- posifi 10mo ago
  In India you have to cheat just to get things done at all due to how nonsensically strict things are, which leads to increased scrutiny due to cheating, which leads to more need for non-cheaters to cheat just to get things done, which leads to increased scrutiny due to cheating… As for the low IQ thing no one wants to acknowledge it but check the charts and see that it’s true. Centuries of caste based inbreeding and colonial clerk education will do that to a population. The added toxins in the turmeric will finish the job.
- captn3m0 10mo ago
  This is the ultimate facade of Digital Identity that UIDAI lets happen while sitting idly by. They put a circular against “Aadhaar photocopies not being valid” only to rescind it the next day because everyone made fun of them. The truth, as you point out, is that Aadhaar in reality is a an “honour based system”, where UIDAI pretends everything is valid and authenticated as long as it gets used everywhere.

sateesh 10mo ago

I think this point is bit orthogonal. The current outrage was largely because the app has to be pre-loaded and there wasn't an option to disable or uninstall it. In the later incarnations, if this is an app which you need to access government services that is less of an issue, though I'm not advocating that this is completely fine. There are already apps like these CoWin (during Covid time), or Digiyatra (despite some of the privacy concerns around it [1]) which many are using. I hope if at all this app gets introduced (in the form you mention) there are larger discussions about permissions and the data access the app would need,and it can be disabled, uninstalled. 1. https://internetfreedom.in/digiyatra-who-owns-your-data/ https://internetfreedom.in/digiyatra-who-owns-your-data/

spprashant 10mo ago
Agreed on all points. I don't view these apps as net negative for a country like India which is helped immensely by digitization. My comment was just pointing out that governments have a way to get you install the app if they really need to.

arunabha 10mo ago

Exactly! Politics as usual in India.