India’s First Metadata case: Why Prashant Kishor is wrong about Aadhaar Number Online Database Part 6 | Gopal Krishna

"I have a file on you."
— M. K. Narayanan’s routine threat to his adversaries as National Security Adviser (NSA) quoted in Sanjay Baru’s book ’The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh’

"One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual’s various life events, such as joining school, immunizations, voting etc."
— A confidential document of UIDAI titled ’Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’, leaked by Wikileaks on 13 Nov 2009

The concerns over the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) has prompted several state governments to halt the ongoing data collection process for a National Population Register (NPR). The fear is that the information sought under NPR is much wider in scope and could potentially be used to target a section of the society.

What these anti-CAA advocates do not realise is that there are more solid reasons to fear that NPR is not just a census exercise, but a larger data convergence project that can result in the government putting its citizens under surveillance, that is unwarranted and dangerous to the secular and constitutional credentials of the country. NPR’s linkage with Aadhaar number plays a central role here.

In fact, NPR of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UID/Aadhaar numbers of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) are aimed at creating an architecture for indiscriminate mass surveillance of the present and future voters who are being structurally coerced to give their consent to the immoral and illegitimate exercise of their profiling for countless times.

It has turned every newborn into a suspect. There is a file being created to track and profile him for good. Like Indian NSA’s threat to his adversaries about having a file on them, having a UID/Aadhaar number and NPR automatically creates a file of the Indian residents in question. Even infants are not spared in this cruel scheme of things.

There was never an occasion wherein there was an all-party meeting to seek the consent of all the political parties with regard to such use of "electoral roll database". This framework tantamounts to rewriting the political geography of the country with hitherto unknown consequences for political rights.

Ignorance about link between NPR, NRC, CIDR of Aadhaar Number

“Aadhaar was a scheme rolled out by the Congress government but they never gave it the mass reach that the BJP was able to. Now, shouting for credit over it makes little sense as the PM Modi-led government was the one who saw an opportunity in the scheme as rolled it out on a mass scale†, said Prashant Kishor [1]. As vice-president of JD(U), Kishor had said, "We have to produce documents in support of citizenship beyond Aadhaar and voter identity card" for National Population Register (NPR) based National Register of Citizens (NRC). He apprehended that it is the poor who will suffer the most like demonetisation. [2]

“National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a subset of National Population Register (NPR). Nobody needs to prove link between NPR and NRC, documents speak for themselves and they state that NPR is the first step of NRC,†said Kishor, as the convenor of Jan Suraj Abhiyan, a noted election strategist and former UN official [3]. As an election strategist, Kishor has worked with Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, M. K. Stalin, Arvind Kejriwal, Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Uddhav Thackeray. Subsequently, JD(U) expelled its vice-president Prashant Kishor and general secretary Pavan Varma from the party because they don’t want to abide by the party’s discipline. As former Congress advisor and JD (U) national Vice President Kishor has questioned Sonia Gandhi’s silence on the NRC. He wanted the Congress president or the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to ask all chief ministers of Congress-ruled states to declare that they will not allow the NRC in their states. He wondered why the Congress did not amend the so-called unconstitutional amendment made in 2003 in the Citizenship law when it was in power between 2004 and 2014. Notably, Congress party was “largely absent†from the massive protests against CAA and NRC across the country.

Contesting Home Minister Amit Shah’s explanation that there was no link between the NPR and the NRC, Kishor had said, “Nobody needs to prove the link between NPR and NRC. The documents speak for themselves and they state that NPR is the first step for NRC. This is not a matter of an individual. It was stated by the President in his address. This entire NRC and NPR debate are linked to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2003, during which, for the first time it was defined that after NPR, if the government wishes, they can do NRC. NRC is a subset of the NPR. Now it is up to the government what they want to do. The government after implementing NPR may say that they won’t go ahead with the NRC, but according to the process, NPR is a prerequisite to NRC. According to government documents, NPR and NRC are linked†. These observations reveal that Kishor is yet to recognise the reasons for the States to un-sign their MoUs with UIDAI and to discontinue both UID/Aadhaar Number online database and NPR exercise to resist the emergence of an unlimited government, unlimited by the constitution of India and constitutionalism.

Here are the reasons:

1. The majority order of the Supreme Court’s 5-Judge Constitution Bench on September 26, 2018, has pointed out that the Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Number project and National Population Register (NPR) project are part of the one database convergence scheme. NPR has been mentioned at least on eight occasions in the order to underline the same.

One of the earliest documents that refer UIDAI, a 14-page document titled ’Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents’ prepared by Wipro Ltd for the government envisaged the close linkage that the UIDAI’s Aadhaar would have with the electoral database. The use of electoral database mentioned in Wipro’s document remains on the agenda of the proponents of UID/Aadhaar.

3. The 41-page Wikileaked document titled ’Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’ that declared itself to be a ’Confidential- property of UIDAI’ states, "The Unique ID or UID will be a numeric that is unique across all 1.2 billion residents in India. The UID number will not contain intelligence. In older identity systems, it was customary to load the ID number with information related to the date of birth, as well as the location of the person."

This document reveals that from day one the Prime Minister wanted to create a file on each of "1.2 billion residents", the division of work between Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)’s NPR and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY)’s UID/Aadhaar was/is merely an attention diversion tactics to outwit citizen’s scrutiny.

The ongoing merger of the electoral database with UID/number debunks UIDAI’s claim that UID/Aadhaar number "will not contain intelligence" and "the location of the person."From these disclosures, it seems that the government has adopted an adversarial role vis-a-vis Indians and acting beyond its constitutional mandate in order to pander to the interests of the commercial czars, non-state actors and foreign intelligence companies.

4. In an RTI reply dated October 25, 2013, UIDAI shared a truncated contract agreement with Ernst & Young. The contract agreement states that "the Unique ID will be a random 12-digit number with the basis for establishing uniqueness of identity being biometrics". It announces that "we will provide a Unique Identity to over 113.9 crore people."

This is evidently a fraudulent announcement because UIDAI with which the agreement has been signed had the mandate to provide Unique Identity to only 60 crore residents of India, and not to 113.9 crore people.

It is evident that while the union government kept Ernst & Young informed about its motive, it kept states, citizens, the parliament and the Supreme Court in the dark. The contract agreement reveals that "biometric systems are not 100 % accurate" and "uniqueness of the biometrics is still a postulate." This admission pulverizes the deceptive edifice on which MEITY’s UID/Aadhaar and MHA’s NPR rests.

5. Section 57 of un-amended Aadhaar Act, 2016 stated that "Nothing contained in this Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect".

It implies that UID/Aadhaar of "over 113.9 crore people" has been shared with foreign private body corporates like Ernst & Young. It is only after the horse had escaped the barn that door has been closed through Section 25 of Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019 in compliance of the Court’s order dated September 26, 2018.

Section 25 of the Amendment Act 2019 states that Section 57 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 has been omitted with effect from July 24, 2019.

6. At paragraph 8 of the majority order authored by Justice A. K. Sikri, it is recorded that "a Processes Committee was set up on July 03, 2006, to suggest the process for updation, modification, addition and deletion of data and fields from the core database to be created under the Unique Identification for BPL Families project.

This Committee, on November 26, 2006, prepared a paper known as ’Strategic Vision Unique Identification of Residents’. Based thereupon, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) was set up on December 04, 2006, to collate the National Population Register under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Unique Identification Number project of the Department "of Information Technology.

Subsequently, "a Committee of Secretaries was formed. The said Committee gave its recommendations which were discussed by EGoM. After approving the Aadhaar Scheme in principle, it instructed the Cabinet Secretary to convene a meeting to finalise the detailed organisational structure of the UID.

After considering the recommendation of the Cabinet Secretary, Notification No. A-43011/02/2009-Admn.I was issued on January 28, 2009, by the Government of India which constituted and notified the UIDAI." Annexure 1 of this notification that constituted UIDAI deals with the Role and Responsibilities of UIDAI. The fourth point in this notification reads: "implementation of UID scheme will entail" taking "necessary steps to ensure collation of NPR with UID (as per. approved strategy)".

7. The minutes of a meeting of Committee of Secretaries held under Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary November 23, 2015 talks of "integrating the twin approaches under NPR and Aadhaar."

The "integrating the twin approaches under NPR and Aadhaar" which is referred here is the same as taking "necessary steps to ensure collation of NPR with UID (as per. approved strategy)" underlined in the notification mentioned in the Aadhaar Act.

A Ministry of Home Affairs communication dated July 19, 2019 states that "The National Population Register (NPR) thus prepared, was seeded with Aadhaar number during its updation exercise in 2015 along with a collection of demographic details of new household members. Approx. 60 mores Aadhaar numbers have been seeded in NPR Database."

This communication discloses that "It has now been decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs to update the existing NPR database during April 2020 - September 2020 along with House listing & Housing Census of phase of Census 2021. While updating the NPR, the Aadhaar number of all the individuals whose Aadhaar number is not available in the NPR Database will also be collected along with various other items. Necessary notification for updating NPR in 2020 will be issued shortly."

9. The Court’s order reveals that "A core group was set up to advise and further the work related to UIDAI...The core group, inter alia, decided that it was better to start with the electoral roll database of 2009 for undertaking the UIDAI project."

Corporate beneficiaries

The convergence and unlimited surveillance project is unfolding in pursuance of the recommendations of the Dr.S.I. Ahson headed the 34 member Task Force for preparation of Policy Document on Identity and Access Management. The members of the task force included representatives from eleven Technology Solution Providers like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Computer Associates, Novell, Honeywell, HP, Red Hat, ILANTUS Technologies, MPhasis and PwC. Significantly, most of them have become beneficiaries of the Aadhaar project.

Notably, in 2018, IBM published a document which states that “The Aadhaar biometric identification initiative digitally links individuals with the various socio-economic features characterizing them.†Commenting on this near “universal identification database†of Aadhaar Numbers, it cited the example of “all telecom subscribers†who are being “reverified using Aadhaar†. It stated that “Aadhaar has become mandatory for taxation records, death registration, bank account opening and for larger financial transactions.†IBM’s example with regard to reverification of “all telecom subscribers†using Aadhaar Number is deliberately misleading and contrary to Supreme Court’s judgement dated September 26, 2018.

The Court referred to the Circular dated March 23, 2017 issued by the Department of Telecommunications which directed that all licensees shall reverify the existing mobile subscribers (pre-paid and post-paid) through Aadhaar based e-KYC process. The Circular made linking of mobile connections with Aadhaar Number mandatory, which was a requirement not only in respect of those individuals who would be becoming mobile subscribers, but applies to existing subscribers as well. The Court observed: “We are of the opinion that not only such a circular lacks backing of a law, it fails to meet the requirement of proportionality as well….It also impinges upon the voluntary nature of the Aadhaar scheme. We find it to be disproportionate and unreasonable state compulsion. It is to be borne in mind that every individual/resident subscribing to a SIM card does not enjoy the subsidy benefit or services mentioned in Section 7 of the Act. We, therefore, have no hesitation in declaring the Circular dated March 23, 2017 as unconstitutional.†Although more than 5 years have passed since Court’s judgement IBM has not rectified its blunder. IBM’s document is akin to an eulogy from a beneficiary of the Aadhaar Number scheme.

Notably, in response to a question posed to the Prime Minister in the Lok Sabha, the union government informed that based on the evaluation of Expression of Interest (Eol) invited by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for selection and shortlisting of Managed Service Provider (MSP) to implement and manage the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UIDAI, “nine companies, namely, M/s. HCL Infosystems Ltd., M/s. IBM India Pvt. Ltd., M/s. HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd., M/s. Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd., M/s. Tech Mahindra, M/s. Mahindra Satyam, M/s. Wipro Ltd., M/s. TCS Ltd., and M/s. HCL Technologies†were shortlisted, to participate in the next round of tender process. Those who could not be chosen in the final round of the process were appeased through subsequent contracts.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates have been publicly saying that he wanted to be associated with UIDAI’s project and had met UIDAI’s chairman in 2009. In 2017, Microsoft adopted Aadhaar as an identity tool for LinkedIn, the professional networking site for Skype Lite, its video conferencing interface to reach millions in small towns and rural areas who lack e-mail IDs. Notably, Microsoft is one of the fathers of World Bank’s eTransform Initiative, which is structurally behind the Aadhaar online database project at least since April 2010. Microsoft has signed an agreement with Ministry of Agriculture to create a data of farmers using Aadhaar database as well. Being a beneficiary of the Aadhaar project, it endorses it on its website and in its media engagements.

Union government has appointed Oracle Corp., a US based compamy as an empanelled cloud infrastructure provider for the MEITY. Oracle has public data centres in India Oracle’s solutions are being used by GST Network, UIDAI and even a lot of central ministries and state governments.

In October 2016, IBM had announced acquisition of US open software company Red Hat for $34 billion. Red Hat is the backbone of Aadhaar infrastructure, GST, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Stock Exchange (NSE), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), SBI Insurance, most of India’s core banking services and railway ticketing system.

Significantly, IBM’s name is associated with facilitation of the Holocaust. Its role has been captured in the IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black. Aadhaar Number online database which is undertaking unending census reminiscent of the census in Germany by the IBM.

The Task Foree did not pay any heed to the recommendations of London School of Economics (LSE) against centralised online database of citizens and residents, which led to the abandonment of Tony Blair’s National ID project in UK. Yashwant Sinha headed Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance drew on LSE’s study to reject the Aadhaar project.

In such a backdrop, there is a compelling logic for all the parties, campaigns and peoples movements to resist the ongoing bartering of citizen’s databases and transfer of national data assets to foreign entities in the name of Aadhaar Number Online Database, NPR, NRC and their merger with electoral database and other partner databases.

(Author: Dr. Gopal Krishna, is a lawyer and a researcher of philosophy and law. His current work is focused on philosophy of digital totalitarianism. He has appeared before Supreme Court’s Committees, Parliamentary Committees of Europe, Germany and India and UN agencies on the subject of national and international legisaltions. He is the co-founder of East India Research Council (EIRC). He is convener of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) which has been campaigning for freedom from UID/Aadhaar/NPR and DNA profiling through Criminal Identification Procedure since 2010. He had appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that questioned and trashed the biometric identification of Indians through UID/Aadhaar. He is also the editor of www.toxicswatch.org)