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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

by 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.
    - ivell 10mo ago
      > It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked. In reality different IDs were accepted at different departments and there was no consensus. It was really a pain. If someone took ration card as valid, others wanted another ID. In some states it was even worse. It is true that the government has indirectly made Aadhar mandatory, contrary to the spirit of supreme court order.
- jeswin 10mo ago
  I may have yielded, but that happened with the acknowledgement that it's not entirely a bad thing. Other IDs have varying levels of validity and authenticity; today I am of the opinion that countries like India shouldn't waste money and time on these. In fact, I'd say ditch the PAN card as well. If Aadhaar makes it easier for people living near poverty to get say bank accounts, it'd trump the reservations I have. That's what made UPI possible - just about everyone today has UPI, even people begging for money sometimes have a QR code handy (at least here in Bangalore).
  - arunabha 10mo ago
    > today I am of the opinion that countries like India shouldn't waste money and time on these. I agree that there are undeniable benefits from Aadhar. However, the issue is that the narrative from the govt has been that it's an either or situation. Either you have the convenience of Aadhaar, or you have privacy. This is unequivocally false. The solution isn't even technical. There are two simple, easily doable fixes which will deliver most of the benefits without significantly eroding privacy. 1. Ensure that legally valid ids other than Aadhaar are not treated as second class by any govt department. If a non Aadhaar id is refused, the reason must be given in writing. The problem is govt babus like the ease of Aadhaar and hence refuse to do the tiny bit of extra work needed on the non Aadhaar path. 2. Amend the Aadhaar act to ban the use of Aadhaar for anything except identity verification. If any personal data linked to Aadhaar is saved by a platform, then they are liable for leak of the data in the event of a breach. Just doing these will enable the use of Aadhaar for it's original intent which was verifiable identity. The privacy degradation comes from using Aadhaar as a primary key for arbitrary storage of personal data, not from the existence of Aadhaar itself.
    - jeswin 10mo ago
      These are neither simple, nor easily doable. But the bigger problem is cost (time and money). My point was that India should switch to a single card/id for everything, and get rid of everything else including the PAN card. Eventually make Aadhaar digital, and chip based so that it can hold your DL as well. It is it bad for privacy, Yes. But what a country should spend on protecting or preserving privacy is a function of where it is on the socioeconomic ladder. If a single ID helps 80% of Indians (a billion people) navigate the labyrinth of our bureaucracy, I'm ok with it, _today_. Besides, simpler rules go a long way in reducing the power of govt departments (which we can agree on). It reduces cognitive overload for citizens, as well as for govt workers. Factor in where the rest of India stands in terms of education etc, the value of simple rules cannot be overstated. As someone who values privacy, there are still ways to do it. You just have to invest a lot more energy and time into it though.
- aiauthoritydev 10mo ago
  India supreme court is bonkers and often known for its BS judgements devoid of logic and law. Aadhar is "identity", it is not a "card" of any kind though Indians have inherent love for collecting various cards for fun. I have my driving license, PAN, aapar, kisan and state government health insurance cards, labor department id card. I have few more in some drawer. Once a person gets aadhar, it acts pretty much same as OAuth. You go to a hotel to get a room, Hotel by law is required to verify that your name and face match. You give your aadhar card to them which they scan on their computer and verify that your name matches your face. Because they are a hotel they have right to only verify that. This is much more privacy preserving than what supreme court did. Because of Supreme Court, hotels no long bother to implement this and instead demand your passport and other identification, scan it and leave it in their system forever. They also are known to sell this data to other from time to time. The technical idea behind was aadhar was similar to UPI. Government runs the core infra with basic APIs but private companies build apps on top of it. For example, say GPay builds aadhar interface where when you walk into a hotel to reserve a room, Gpay automatically generates a new aadhar number with permissions only to show your name, photo and age. Hotel system verifies that and stores a receipt. If in future government is investigating who stayed in which room, law enforcement can convert these receipts to identification. This was a better model which would have unlocked a lot of potential. The government failed to argue the case correctly and supreme court acted more like an activist court. I do think both Government and Supreme Court failed to show the correct user journey here.
  - captn3m0 10mo ago
    I’d love to see a citation for a Hotel being legally allowed access to the Aadhaar KUA system, even before the Supreme Court judgement. No hotel in India does this, because Aadhaar as implemented is a “honor based system” for the majority of usecases where a photocopy of a Aadhaar (with or without QR) is assumed to be valid. In comparison, a Voter ID and PAN are both hologram protected and forgeries are easily detected. W3C verifiable credentials do not require a singular identity source, they work perfectly fine with multiple issuers.
    - sateesh 10mo ago
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.

by jeswin 10mo ago

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.
  - ivell 10mo ago
    > It's that any id from a range of acceptable ids like passports, ration card, drivers license worked. In reality different IDs were accepted at different departments and there was no consensus. It was really a pain. If someone took ration card as valid, others wanted another ID. In some states it was even worse. It is true that the government has indirectly made Aadhar mandatory, contrary to the spirit of supreme court order.
jeswin 10mo ago
I may have yielded, but that happened with the acknowledgement that it's not entirely a bad thing. Other IDs have varying levels of validity and authenticity; today I am of the opinion that countries like India shouldn't waste money and time on these. In fact, I'd say ditch the PAN card as well. If Aadhaar makes it easier for people living near poverty to get say bank accounts, it'd trump the reservations I have. That's what made UPI possible - just about everyone today has UPI, even people begging for money sometimes have a QR code handy (at least here in Bangalore).
- arunabha 10mo ago
  > today I am of the opinion that countries like India shouldn't waste money and time on these. I agree that there are undeniable benefits from Aadhar. However, the issue is that the narrative from the govt has been that it's an either or situation. Either you have the convenience of Aadhaar, or you have privacy. This is unequivocally false. The solution isn't even technical. There are two simple, easily doable fixes which will deliver most of the benefits without significantly eroding privacy. 1. Ensure that legally valid ids other than Aadhaar are not treated as second class by any govt department. If a non Aadhaar id is refused, the reason must be given in writing. The problem is govt babus like the ease of Aadhaar and hence refuse to do the tiny bit of extra work needed on the non Aadhaar path. 2. Amend the Aadhaar act to ban the use of Aadhaar for anything except identity verification. If any personal data linked to Aadhaar is saved by a platform, then they are liable for leak of the data in the event of a breach. Just doing these will enable the use of Aadhaar for it's original intent which was verifiable identity. The privacy degradation comes from using Aadhaar as a primary key for arbitrary storage of personal data, not from the existence of Aadhaar itself.
  - jeswin 10mo ago
    These are neither simple, nor easily doable. But the bigger problem is cost (time and money). My point was that India should switch to a single card/id for everything, and get rid of everything else including the PAN card. Eventually make Aadhaar digital, and chip based so that it can hold your DL as well. It is it bad for privacy, Yes. But what a country should spend on protecting or preserving privacy is a function of where it is on the socioeconomic ladder. If a single ID helps 80% of Indians (a billion people) navigate the labyrinth of our bureaucracy, I'm ok with it, _today_. Besides, simpler rules go a long way in reducing the power of govt departments (which we can agree on). It reduces cognitive overload for citizens, as well as for govt workers. Factor in where the rest of India stands in terms of education etc, the value of simple rules cannot be overstated. As someone who values privacy, there are still ways to do it. You just have to invest a lot more energy and time into it though.
aiauthoritydev 10mo ago
India supreme court is bonkers and often known for its BS judgements devoid of logic and law. Aadhar is "identity", it is not a "card" of any kind though Indians have inherent love for collecting various cards for fun. I have my driving license, PAN, aapar, kisan and state government health insurance cards, labor department id card. I have few more in some drawer. Once a person gets aadhar, it acts pretty much same as OAuth. You go to a hotel to get a room, Hotel by law is required to verify that your name and face match. You give your aadhar card to them which they scan on their computer and verify that your name matches your face. Because they are a hotel they have right to only verify that. This is much more privacy preserving than what supreme court did. Because of Supreme Court, hotels no long bother to implement this and instead demand your passport and other identification, scan it and leave it in their system forever. They also are known to sell this data to other from time to time. The technical idea behind was aadhar was similar to UPI. Government runs the core infra with basic APIs but private companies build apps on top of it. For example, say GPay builds aadhar interface where when you walk into a hotel to reserve a room, Gpay automatically generates a new aadhar number with permissions only to show your name, photo and age. Hotel system verifies that and stores a receipt. If in future government is investigating who stayed in which room, law enforcement can convert these receipts to identification. This was a better model which would have unlocked a lot of potential. The government failed to argue the case correctly and supreme court acted more like an activist court. I do think both Government and Supreme Court failed to show the correct user journey here.
- captn3m0 10mo ago
  I’d love to see a citation for a Hotel being legally allowed access to the Aadhaar KUA system, even before the Supreme Court judgement. No hotel in India does this, because Aadhaar as implemented is a “honor based system” for the majority of usecases where a photocopy of a Aadhaar (with or without QR) is assumed to be valid. In comparison, a Voter ID and PAN are both hologram protected and forgeries are easily detected. W3C verifiable credentials do not require a singular identity source, they work perfectly fine with multiple issuers.
  - sateesh 10mo ago

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.