Last week, Wikileaks published what were previously secret documents on a plan to create a unique ID for every single citizen in India -- that's more than a billion IDs, and would be the largest such project in world history. Now, the government agency tasked with implementing that plan is facing widespread backlash.
Outrage grows over India's massive ID plan
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Even if that were a good idea, how could one possibly trust the motives of anybody who would try to pull it off secretly?
That a lot of ID's...microchips? ;) Hope not!
Being of Indian origin myself, I must say that I have mixed feelings about this. It's all about incentives. Right now, people have an incentive to be a part of corruption because for a lot of services, it is actually CHEAPER (as well as faster) to get services from corrupt officials.
On the other hand, there is an invasion of privacy. But of the 1billion plus Indians, many of them would happily sell their most of their freedom to have the means to use the remainder of it.
Imagine a system in which you cannot be discriminated against by a bureaucracy because every move you make is properly documented. This may go contrary to what many of you think, that freedom and well being should be promoted equally, but I believe, that to a certain point, well being must take precedence over freedom. India is not America, where corruption is not the norm, and even most people living below the poverty line at least know they will get another meal in any given time frame.
Any properly distributed system requires some form of centralization, whether it be locally at the distribution nodes or at the root. I think the UID has the power to bring order to the currently chaotic Indian bureaucracy, but it needs to be properly incentivised.
Having said that, I'd like to point out that something like a google id or an open id or a facebook profile does much the same thing. It gathers all your information into one place and, largely, tracks it. We are heading down this path by choice. We distribute what was previously centralized or unorganized by centralizing other aspects of our lives.
I think you go too far by assuming that this system will not be corrupted as well. Corruption is a human problem, not a technical one. You don't solve war or poverty with technology unless you can completely shift the human situational paradigm. Simply tracking people won't change that. You fail to ask the appropriate question, "Who will watch the watchmen?"
In some Arab Gulf countries, there is an ID system in full effect on an admittedly smaller scale. It does nothing about corruption, collusion, or human rights violations. Actually it makes repression a fuckton easier.
how is this different from a social security number, or a national insurance number in the uk?
I didn't say it wouldn't be corrupted. In fact, I'm not even realistically hoping that it wouldn't be corrupted. All that really matters is that it is better and things don't get worse. As for corruption in India, its more of a mid level thing, not a top of the government thing.
Corruption is a 'human' problem, but it's still a matter of incentives. People will not be corrupt if they reap no benefit from it. So from that perspective, it is a technical problem. And the Indian government is certainly not the vindictive type (unlike many strongly religious states or, for example Stalin's Soviet Union).
Also, I've known about UID for almost a year now... so I'm not sure how secret it actually was. Though I might have talked about it with someone with government links.
@octopod:
read the article. This keep track of all your transactions, and ALL your personal information. It is also biometric, which scares some people.
They're going to need a LOT of computing power to make this system work at all. I'm betting it'll break down more often than it actually works.
y, but only the last paragraph in the linked article says this, not the leaked document. the document is pretty clear it's to provide a trusted authentication mechanism only. so I think the answer to my q is it's tied to biometrics.
they claim to have some laudable goals, otoh, I'm not saying I think it's a sane or achievable idea, or whether it will end up just pouring huge amounts of money into companies who get contracted to implement it.
Anyone who's ever been to India knows there's a greater chance of America voting for Ralph Nader than there is of the Indian Government getting around its own bureaucracy as it tries to find -never mind keep track of- the zillions of people crammed into that country. Forget the draconian implications, which are obvious and need not be mentioned here.
@mechko- corruption isn't going to decrease or increase as long as humans remain in the evolutionary state that they have been since they've been recording their actions. The question is, would you rather have lots of powerless people acting corruptly due to their need to survive, or would you rather have a few incredibly powerful people acting corruptly because the temptation is too great for their own, short-term gain? I'll take option A, thank you very much. When I was in India, a boy ripped my bag from my hands and jumped off the train, with pretty much everything valuable I had inside (don't ask. Stupid, I know.) Not the best turn of events, yet I could sympathize with his situation and bore him no ill will, despite it completely screwing me over in many ways. There is no such sympathy for the abuse of power that always accompanies such policies as the one being proposed here.
I beg to differ. I see the corruption inherent in the system and it robs individuals of the power to do well within the system. In that sense, it is self perpetuating. 20 years, even 80 years, down the line, if this petty corruption continues unchecked, the individual will continue to be powerless. There are already many extraordinarily powerful individuals in the system who can and do exert their power almost on whim. However, whereas in the US it is the BALANCE of power that maintains order, in India it is that sheer mass.
The elimination of petty corruption levels the playing field, and even if it lowers the highest potential, it raises the standard of living.
You cannot expect that every country will take a truly flawless and egalitarian path to ascension. That is unfair. India has had independence for just over 62 years. The US has had it for over 220 years. The development of any major power that maintains a true egalitarian state (or as close an approximation thereof as is possible) has had years and years to put it into action. Denying India the right to make choices that we would not allow in America is unfair because it restricts the speed with which India can develop.
There is nothing "secretive" about this project whatsoever. It has been widely publicized and is one of the more transparently handled projects being taken up by the Government of India. None of this makes it innocuous, but just setting the facts straight.
The idea of a new system is all well and good, but who are they going to phone for tech support?
The assertion that corruption is simply human nature, therefore there is nothing you can do about it is clearly disproven by the fact that there are hugely varying levels of corruption between governments. It IS human nature, and you CAN do things about it.
I don't know if this particular plan would be effective or worth the various costs, but the fatalistic attitude is dumb.
dude, srsly, the corruption would be in whos pockets the $30-$40b they estimate this would cost ends up.
@12 - Ian70 - you sir are a god, comment++.
You seem to put the US on a pedestal it clearly does not deserve. We're a good example of what I'm talking about- pure abuse from the top, unchecked and allowed to roam free. Case in point- Wall Street just posted incredible profits for 2009. Hello??? Who gave them that handout? Our own president. It doesn't get more disgusting than that.
I'm not saying we can't eliminate human corruption. I'm saying in the entire history of our existence, we haven't progressed an inch, no matter what we've tried. And if you think that's going to change by giving big brother that much power, you are dangerously naive!
I sure hope we someday get passed our own faults, and I do what I can in that regard. I'm just not fooling myself, either, as to when or how it's going to happen...
Really? We "haven't progressed an inch?" Really?
As far as I can tell, yeah. For every "victory" there's at least a corresponding "defeat". And the nature of any historical character you can find, whether from a work of fiction or recorded "fact" differs how, exactly, from today's person? Different prejudices, different social constructs, but same basic nature- afraid, afraid, afraid, which breeds selfishness, greed, violence, you name it. We battle the same issues today than they did then. Some would argue things are worse today than before, others want to believe we've progressed. I think both are only seeing the side of the glass they want to see, rather than the whole thing.
I am certainly not putting the US on a pedestal. I am in fact decrying the US (and more generally, Western) tendency to presume that
a) all countries should strive to develop through the western democratic model
and
b) that our ethical system is the 'right' one.
I think we have progressed as a species, but saying that things are worse than ever is taking some discrete (linear) measure of civilization as a whole.
I am missing some stuff here. Where is the "outrage" as mentioned in the post subject? I am an Indian, not associated with UID project, but I think if done properly, it can get Government grants to masses more efficiently. I live in Bangalore and as far as I can hear talking to people, there is no outrage anywhere! People are cynical though whether it will work.
I think the India mass ID plan has more to do with the fact that the Indian government has recently basically declared war on the Adivasi India's indigenous tribes. Supposedly they are sending in troops to fight the Naxalites Maoist guerrillas who operate in poor rural areas. All the tribal areas the troops are going to have mineral ores & forests that corporations are lining up to exploit. Arandhati Roy talks about this in this Sept 2009 edition of Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/28/author_arundhati_roy_on_conflicts_and
I live in India and I'm amazed at the lack of a backlash or outrage, either in relation to the leak or the project itself. I don't want to come across all urban elitist by saying that my privacy and civil liberties concerns are more important than the rural poor's right to receive services and improve their standard of living. However, I have grave concerns about the manner in which this is being steamrolled through various hoops, without any public dialogue.
In response to a previous poster, no, the existence of the scheme is certainly not a secret, but actual details - the where/what/how/when of the plan - have certainly been kept very quiet till now. In the local media, reporting has been a very curious mix of "how wonderful that Nandan is running this project", "maybe more capable people from industry will dip their toes into the political blackhole of this country" , on the one hand, and "look how clever India is to create the world's largest database" on the other. Nothing that actually describes how the scheme will work, who the stakeholders are (apart from little snippets about Yahoo and Microsoft and other usual suspects fishing to "help" with the project) and what the larger picture is.
I hear from certain people involved in the project that the approach is very much along the lines of, Indians don't really value privacy so let's not worry too much about that aspect. While it pains me to admit that this may be largely be true (in a country of people who wonder where their next meal might come from, and how to get a roof over their heads, it is either a luxury or so far removed from their heirarchy of values as not to exist), I have huge concerns about surveillance, civil liberties infringement, corruptability, hackability, etc. All the usual concerns people have about ID schemes anywhere, but compounded hugely by corruption, lack of education and literacy and sheer scale, which isn't often the case in other countries rolling out such schemes. This is really going to be the mother of all identity projects.
Besides, for a system based entirely on online verification, where the X%$£@& is the internet penetration and the access to infrastructure? In it's usual attempt to leapfrog entire stages of development in the West, India seems a little cart before the horse on this one too. If it succeeds in improving infrastructure, fantastic, but having seen how many years it's taken to simply build roads and public transport schemes in my home city, I despair.
My (perhaps simplistic view) is that they could use the money earmarked for the project to first fix (or at least make a dent in) the basis needs of food, shelter, medical care and work. When that has worked to some degree, India can look a technology solution to fixing the ghost in the machine and issuing IDs in a more measured, fit for purpose manner, not in this one size fits all approach that denies people a real opt out.
But proponents of the scheme may argue that even to roll out those basis services, identity is critical. My half baked, work-in-progress view is that we already have a plethora of mechanisms to deliver services and establish identity. Why not fix the inadequacies of existing methods and/or tackle corruption, rather than overlay a whole new scheme at ridiculous expense without thinking it through? There's no going back once the scheme is implemented.
I will be participating in a consultation process to discuss the ID scheme. Will report back after that if people are interested.
The biggest problem I've seen with the identity establishment is corrupt officials giving bribe-payers the dues of other individuals and voiding the victims dues. This doesn't happen on a small scale. Before anyone says 'they should go out and get a job', the radio repairman in BE block, Salt Lake has a PhD in Electronics from IIT in the 80's. He's a radio repairman because that's the best job that was available.
I agree that the alternate route is to build the infrastructure first with the money available for this project, and THEN go on to the project. I think there are several reasons, though, that the Indian government may do otherwise:
First, they are hoping to raise the standard of living in the gutters so that these people can actually afford to be respectable members of society.
Second, the cost of corruption is currently in the range of 20-40%. This project does not have as high a cost because noone is certain whether they can be corrupt or not yet (or they will be caught hopefully) and after this project sources of corruption should be easily traceable. ie: Consider the project as the internetz. Each site (person) has one image. If any two sites have the same image, one of the two is corrupt. oh... and google has indexed everything properly AND there is no shortage of skilled workers to actually vet the system.