294 - 757 - Methods of defeating Indian E-Surveillance - Techno Legal news

Posted on October 22nds 2010
By Pritesh N Munjal

Those who are opposed to the Orwellian nature of Indian government must not sit idle but do as much as possible to reclaim their civil liberties. For instance, Indians can use self defence methods to defeat e-surveillance of Internet, e-mails, telephone conversations, instant messaging, etc by Indian government and its agencies.

Similarly, those who are not comfortable with the Aadhar project or UID project of India and its dubious management by the Nandan Nilekani led unique identification authority of India (UIDAI), must restrain from giving their biometric details.

As far as Blackberry services in India are concerned, it is quiet doubtful that Blackberry would fight for the human rights and civil liberties of Indians in Indian cyberspace. The only initiative in this regard in India seems to be managed by Praveen Dalal under the banner of protecting human rights in Indian cyberspace (HRPIC).

Fortunately, another good initiative in this regard has been launched in the form of RIM Check project. This project would analyse the data leaving Blackberry devices for e-surveillance and other civil liberty violations.

Meanwhile, the Indian government has decided to follow the footsteps of its Chinese counterpart. India is planning to control Indian portion of Internet and looking forward for a “kill switch” type option. Under this option, the Indian government and its agencies can cut off all Internet services during emergencies.

The times to come would be really challenging for human rights activists but the battle between e-surveillance and civil liberties would keep on going.

293 - (756) - Aadhar And UIDAI Have Failed In India by Catherine Frenandes

Posted on 22nd October by Catherine Fernandes


The unique identification project of India, now known as Aadhar project of India, is one of the worst projects in the Indian history. It is managed by Nandan Nilekani as the head of unique identification authority of India (UIDAI). Both Aadhar project and UIDAI are “unconstitutional” and they are surviving only because the government of India has bypassed the parliament and imposed the project upon Indians.

Fortunately, Aadhar project/UID project and UIDAI have been “big failures” as they have failed to gain the confidence of Indian masses. All the Indian government and UIDAI could have done in this regard is imposing the same upon illiterate and poor people. The educated and well informed have stayed away from Aadhar project.

Aadhar project must be seen in the light of other illegal and unconstitutional projects like national intelligence grid (Natgrid), crime and criminal tracking network and systems (CCTNS), etc. By using the biometric data of Aadhar project and other details of national population register (NPR) with Natgrid and CCTNS, a complete e-surveillance and Orwellian state has been established in India.

Indians must use self defence methods to defeat e-surveillance by Indian government and its agencies over Internet, e-mails, telephone conversations, instant messaging, etc.

As far as Aadhar project/UID project and UIDAI are concerned, Indians must not give their biometric details lest they wish to be watched 24×7.

Let us fight against illegal and unconstitutional projects like Aadhar/UID, Natgrid, CCTNS, etc and force the government of India to respect and preserve our civil liberties.

260 - Column : Where’s the privacy Bill? - FINANCIAL EXPRESS

Bibek Debroy
Posted: Tuesday, Sep 28, 2010 at 2346 hrs IST

The Cabinet has approved the National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) Bill and it is expected to be placed before Parliament in the Winter Session. Before reacting, it is still a Bill. It will be referred to a Standing Committee, then passed by both Houses, then receive President’s assent and then be notified. Until then, it isn’t law. There are two strands behind transition towards the UID (unique identity) idea. First, there was a multi-purpose national identity card (MNIC) idea, driven by considerations of security and identified with the NDA government in 2002. This was meant for citizens, not residents. So there can be a national register of citizens (NRC) and a national register of residents (NRR) and the two are not identical.

Under the UPA, UID became equated with the NRR and not NRC. On this difference, UIDAI’s (Unique Identification Authority of India) response will be that it is only the first step and UID (with photographs and biometry) doesn’t create any entitlements. There is nothing to prevent the ministry of home affairs (MHA) from using UID to eventually segregate NRC from NRR. However, that’s not how ministries and the government departments (say, the police) are likely to look at UID. Existence of UID is likely to be looked upon as creating entitlements and establishing citizenship.

Second, under the UPA, UID was driven less by concerns of security and more by intentions of improving efficiency of public expenditure and facilitating e-governance. Even if we don’t identify the poor and target subsidies (outside UIDAI’s mandate), UID can curb fake identity and reduce leakage and corruption. That’s the Aadhar idea. But who has legally authorised Aadhar and UIDAI and allowed it to collect data?

No one, and neither Aadhar nor UIDAI have any constitutional or legal sanction. As of now, they are outside Parliamentary scrutiny, too. A limited objective of the Bill is to provide legal sanctity to UIDAI, to be renamed NIDAI (National Identification Authority of India). But surely such a major exercise should not be based on a narrow and limited agenda. For instance, both tort law and constitutional law protect private data from unlawful intrusion. There must be safeguards on recording inaccurate data, corruption of data, unauthorised access and disclosure, mission creep (where additional features and objectives are bunged into the main database) and profiling. The point is we do not have legislation on privacy and data protection, the civil rights angle. The Bill has some clauses on commercial abuse of database, some restrictions on nature of information collected and penal clauses on abuse. It also borrows on the IT Act of 2000. But that’s not enough.

One response is the following. We have a rollout deadline in Maharashtra and a subsequent timeframe of 2014. Let’s not hold that up. Arrangements have already been made for the first 12-digit number to be handed over by the Congress president in Nandurbar district in Maharashtra on September 29 and the PM is going to be there too. Parallel legislation on privacy and data collection will surface.

The NIAI Bill is only one part of the jigsaw. If parallel legislation on privacy and data collection doesn’t surface, surely it will be flagged by the Parliament’s Standing Committee when the Bill is introduced in the Lok Sabha. Let’s not bother about that now. After all, as legislation it is still only a draft. That’s a very casual and ad hoc way of approaching the problem. If there is one thing that has characterised Nandan Nilekani and UIDAI’s work so far, that is transparency, placing information in public domain and consultations. Comments were also invited on the draft Bill, and points that civil society organisations are making now are not new. Therefore, the NIAI Bill should have been cleared by the Cabinet with proposed legislation on privacy and data collection, as part of a package and not in isolation.

On December 16, 2009, Neeraj Shekhar asked a question in the Lok Sabha: “(c) whether confidentiality of personal details of individuals will be at risk after issuing UIN; (d) if so, whether the government needs to bring a privacy policy to safeguard the same; (e) if so, the details thereof; and (f) the method by which the UIN project will maintain a balance between privacy of individuals and requirement of security agencies to combat terrorism.”

V Narayanaswamy, the minister of state, replied, “A legal framework is being envisaged to safeguard the privacy of the resident’s data and also take care of the security requirements of the country.” This Bill is certainly not the one that envisaged law or legal framework. Was it necessary to have that deadline of September 29 and rush things through? As far as one can make out from reports, the Cabinet had no constructive comments on the draft Bill, apart from FM’s point about taxation decisions (context was exemption for resources collected by UIDAI) being finance ministry’s mandate. That’s not the way to address fears about Big Brother. Coincidentally, beyond 2013, UIDAI has annual targets of 300 million and Orwell’s “1984” talks about 300 million people, “all with the same face”.

The author is a noted economist

211 - Biometric ID Scheme for 1.2 Billion Indians Meets Resistance - New American

WRITTEN BY ALEX NEWMAN       
TUESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2010

A costly plan by the central government of India to create unique biometric identification numbers for every Indian is meeting stiff resistance from civil-liberties groups as the regime prepares to send swarms of officials across the nation this month to kick off the program.

The controversial ID numbers will include biometric data, fingerprints, iris scans, personal information, a microchip for easy scanning, and more. The scheme is being led by a new government agency called the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). It is expected to cost upwards of $3 billion, but as with all government projects, will likely be far more expensive.

"The UID is soft infrastructure, much like mobile telephony, important to connect individuals to the broader economy," software magnate and UIDAI boss Nandan Nilekani told the Inter Press Service news agency, claiming the poor would benefit most from the new identification system.

And indeed, one of the selling points for the new scheme is the notion that it will become easier to receive government handouts. "This will mean maids and laborers … a hundred or two hundred million people — will be able to access welfare benefits for the first time without any questioning who they are," Nilekani, one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, told the U.K. Guardian.

But of course, there is a flip side to that as well. Several ulterior motives have been raised in regard to the project. For one, UIDAI chairman Nilekani has also been working on creating personal “carbon” accounts for all Indians. And as the Washington Post reported recently, the regime is also hoping the system will get more people paying income taxes. “National security,” of course, is another admitted purpose of the scheme.

Nilekani, however, defends the developing system. "The UID number, with its 'anytime, anywhere' biometric authentication, addresses the problem of trust," he claimed.

But not everybody agrees, and a broad coalition is putting up a fight under the banner of the Campaign For No-UID. Among the groups joining forces against the ID plan are, as reported by Inter Press Service, the Alternative Law Forum, Citizen Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties, Indian Social Action Forum, and the Centre for Internet and Society.

The anti-ID coalition actually held a conference in New Delhi late last month. And the criticism came from all angles. Among the various arguments against the new system — it will be a treasure trove for identity thieves, massively expensive, and filled with glitches.

Another problem highlighted by critics is the fact that the system will be used for caste (a rigid class system that still exists in India) profiling, since the government decided to include caste as a category. And of course, accusations of “Big Brother” tracking and the creation of a “surveillance society” are running rampant. Some analysts are even speculating that the system could eventually be used for payments, possibly even to phase out cash transactions.

"There's already no accountability in regard to violations of human and civil rights,” Indian human-rights attorney Nandita Haskar told the Guardian. “In this atmosphere what are the oversight mechanisms for this kind of surveillance?"

Another lawyer working to stop the ID regime is Usha Ramanathan. "We do not want an intrusive, surveillance state in India," he told the Washington Post. "Information about people will be shared with intelligence agencies, banks and companies, and we will have no idea how our information is interpreted and used."

Even the press has called the system Orwellian. "It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived," wrote Rhys Blakely for the Times, a British newspaper. "If the cards were piled on top of each other they would be 150 times as high as Mount Everest — 1,200 kilometres." The Indian Financial Chronicle wrote about the scheme under the headline ‘Nilekani’s faceless Indian gets prisoner number.’

While registering for a biometric ID is still technically “voluntary,” the UIDAI is already working with state authorities, banks, telecom firms, driver’s license officials, insurance companies, and even health-care providers to ensure that all Indians must carry their IDs. There will be no way to avoid the system, and critics have pointed out that even domestic travel will become impossible without the ID in the near future.

Even officials with UIDAI admit that it will essentially be required. “The UID number may not be mandatory by law, but in the other sense it will be as in the US where people cannot move a step without the social security number where also it is not mandatory,” BB Nanawati, deputy director-general of the UIDAI, told the Financial Chronicle. “It will become necessary rather than mandatory.”

And it isn’t just humans who will get a “Unique Identification Number” (UID). “Since UID will potentially be used as a primary identifier in several transactions in the financial, health, food distribution, job creation schemes and transactions, it is important to assign an entity ID to the service delivery organization,” said an unnamed UIDAI official quoted by the Business Standard. “We plan to give every registrar an entity ID,” the official added.

Americans may consider the ID scheme preposterous, but a push to create a similar system in the U.S. has been gaining steam recently. As reported by The New American this April in an article entitled ‘Obama & Co. Want National Biometric ID,’ a “bipartisan” group of legislators is working with the administration to implement such an unconstitutional identification regime. Around the world, numerous other countries either already have or are working on similar schemes.

India, widely referred to as the world’s “largest democracy” with its 1.2 billion inhabitants, should reject this draconian identification system. The potential for abuse is enormous, while the benefits — if there are any — are negligible at best. But Americans, too, must remain on guard. A coalition of government power mongers and businesses with a financial interest in these sorts of schemes is building strength and gaining momentum around the world. And so, people must resist.

108 - Benevolent’ surveillance of students is here'- by Neha Bhatt - Source - Outlook India

Benevolent’ surveillance of students is here'- by Neha Bhatt

Big brother’s not just watching, but texting too; and playing out his Orwellian fantasies in no less a place than your child’s school. As schools opened after the summer break, a few thousand students found their identity cards turning into tracking devices that monitor and report every move they make to parents. As the card, now fitted with a microchip, arrives at the school gates, a message is sent out: “Your ward has reached school”. The day ends with a message announcing his departure. That’s not all: The new ‘R-Fi’ (radio frequency) monitoring system being aggressively marketed to schools can be customised to keep parents in the loop about everything from attendance at lessons, exam scores, even when and why a child has been punished.

Fifteen schools across the country have already bought the R-Fi system within a month of its launch by the Nagpur-based manufacturer, Pinnacle Teleservices, and the company expects to sign up 50 by the end of the year. At Rs 600-1,000 per child per annum, this doesn’t come cheap, yet there are takers. Why, when there are no statistics whatsoever to show a growing trend of children not reaching school or home safely?

Some parents and principals are happy, but others say monitoring devices would fuel “an environment of fear

Parents want reassurance, say some schools, especially in the case of students who walk to school, or take public transport. At the New Apostolic English High School, Nagpur, principal Vinita Bower says: “We don’t provide transport to children, so R-Fi will help us assure parents their children are safe.” Some parents do seem to buy the safety and security argument. Sushma Rani, whose son Ashwin is a student of Vishal Bharti School in Delhi, which has bought the service, says happily, “We’ll always know whether our children have reached safe and sound”.
It’s clear, though, that safety is not the only spur. R.G. Yevale, founder-president of Pune’s Vidyadhan Education Society, in whose schools the system has been installed, says: “In a competitive environment, this gives us an opportunity to advertise ourselves as a hi-tech institute.” This is a belief echoed by Jalandhar-based Lovely Professional Institutions, which has devised its own biometric system to track its 24,000 students. Many schools Outlook spoke to agreed that surveillance was a matter of pride—just like snagging a battery of cameras.

On the other hand, some educationists believe devices such as R-Fi and GPS may only end up generating a false sense of security—and fuelling, as educationist Abha Adams puts it, “an environment of fear”. She argues: “Schools are gated communities and children are shadowed pretty closely through the day so there is really no need to feel insecure about your child.” As for parents, she says, “It’s a very small minority that are looking for such antiseptic safety. What every parent wants is a learning experience for their child and no amount of hi-fi sci-fi is going to compensate for that.”

Some educationists say the increasing desire to use electronic surveillance is a reaction to unwieldy student numbers. Manju Bharat Ram, chairperson of The Shri Ram Schools in Delhi, says, “We have 11 students to a teacher, so we don’t need to track them. Moreover, tracking or tagging goes against the trust that you, as a parent, put in the school, and in your child. I don’t think any child would like to be monitored that way.”

Do children fully grasp the meaning of being put under the scanner? Sushma’s son, Ashwin, soon to enter the world of R-Fi, says, “My parents will feel better when they know I have reached school.... But then, my parents will also be smsed immediately about every little act of misbehaviour.”

Mysore-based student counsellor Ruchika G. Naidu doesn’t like the sound of that. “When children realise they are being spied on, they don’t get the opportunity to express themselves freely and naturally,” she says. Perhaps, it would do well to ask: Do those who invest in surveillance really want them to?