261 - Prof. B. M. Hegde, MD, FRCP, FRCPE, FRCPG, FRCPI, FACC, FAMS.

Mumbai, Maharashtra, October 5, 2010 –

The famous Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) votary wishes that the government had debated before implementing the pilot project.

Renowned social activist Medha Patkar has termed the newly launched pilot scheme Aadhaar or Unique Identity (UID) as an encroachment on the privacy of the people.
Speaking to this correspondent on the phone from Gorakhpur in UP, Patkar said, “All the private information of people will be recorded. And this can be misused to harass them.”

She went on to suggest that the migrants in particular would be at the receiving end of the scheme. “Before launching Aadhar the government did not have any parliamentary debate over it. A separate debate in the Lok Sabha should have been held,” said the NBA veteran.

Expressing her reservations about whether the scheme will benefit the slum-habitants, pavement dwellers and the downtrodden, the NBA activist claimed that even the much hyped, fool proof UID has chances of being faked. “We have precedents where ration cards and other documents of identity have already been forged.” While criticizing the way the UID was being implemented, Patkar said that the poor have to undergo a tortuous experience before they acquire the facility.

Apart from that, Patkar asked, against such a colossal amount of Rs.45,000 crore, what is the government handing out? “Only an identity?” she questioned. The government should have focused on the upliftment of the poor and the downtrodden, she added.

According to her, a few countries like the Philippines and the United Kingdom have shunned similar schemes. “In the Philippines, the courts intervened after a few cases of privacy infringement occurred,” said Patkar who believes that the government should generate more employment for the poor.

“Then only can the government stop the migration,” she said while catching a train.

By Ashfaque Ismail

190 - Philippines SC Struck Down Their UID as Unconstitutional by Ruchi Gupta

In Politics and Government on August 31, 2010 at 10:51 PM
By Ruchi Gupta

Proposal: Former President Fidel Ramos issued Administrative Order (“AO”) 308 on Dec 12, 1996 to establish a “National Computerized Identification Reference System”. As per the AO, the biometric ID system would help “efficiently identify persons seeking basic services on social security and reduce, if not totally eradicate, fraudulent transactions and misrepresentations”. The ID system was to use the Population Reference Number (PRN) “as the common reference number to establish a linkage among concerned agencies”

Response: On January 24, 1997, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the A.O. for reasons of, inter alia, “ unconstitutional usurpation of the legislative powers of the Congress” and for laying the “groundwork of a system which will violate the bill of rights [privacy] enshrined in the Constitution”. The Supreme Court issued a “temporary restraining order enjoining its [ID system] implementation”

Resolution: Supreme Court declared Administrative Order No. 308  “null and void for being unconstitutional.” In its order, the SC agreed with the petition on both counts stating, “as said administrative order redefines the parameters of some basic rights of our citizenry vis-a-vis the State as well as the line that separates the administrative power of the President to make rules and the legislative power of Congress, it ought to be evident that it deals with a subject that should be covered by law” and “the threat [to right to privacy] comes from the executive branch of government which by issuing A.O. No. 308 pressures the people to surrender their privacy by giving information about themselves on the pretext that it will facilitate delivery of basic services. Given the record-keeping power of the computer, only the indifferent will fail to perceive the danger that A.O. No. 308 gives the government the power to compile a devastating dossier against unsuspecting citizens”

Parallels with India: UIDAI was set up by a GoI notification on January 28 2009.  UIDAI has been operating without statutory status for the past year and a half, in which it has signed MoUs with all states and UTs, Rural Development and Petroleum ministries, many public sector banks, LIC and others.

A bill to achieve statutory status, Draft National Identification Authority Bill 2010 was circulated in July 2010, which states, “On and from the establishment of the Authority — (1) all the assets and liabilities of the Unique Identification Authority of India, established vide notification of the Government of India in the Planning Commission number A-43011/02/2009-Admin.I, dated the 28th January, 2009, shall stand transferred to, and vested in, the Authority” (Clause 22) essentially subverting the power of the Parliament to prescribe limits on the Authority’s operations. Further, the UID project suffers from all the inherent privacy and civil liberties risks of a biometric based national ID system (covered in greater detail in the Issue Overview document)

Source: http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/1998/jul1998/127685.htm

132 - Philippines Supreme Court rejects ID system

Philippines Supreme Court rejects ID system
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-22470125/07/1998

The Supreme Court invalidates an executive order entitled "Adoption of a National Computerized Identification Reference System."