Aadhar fears: Even as the Supreme Court is hearing Aadhaar case, several theories arguing that biometric identification could be dangerous are doing the rounds. Even in the Supreme Court today, petitioner alleged that Aadhaar can turn India into a “surveillance state”. The top court today started the final hearing in the Aadhaar case. The petitioners against the Aadhaar also argued that the citizen identity programme violates citizens’ fundamental right to privacy. Senior Supreme Court lawyer Shyam Dhiva, who appeared for the petitioners, argued that Aadhaar may cause the “death” civil rights of people. There have been many doubts over Aadhaar. But are the doubts and fears right? Nandan Nilekani, former head of UIDAI, says the fears over linking of Aadhaar to various services are “over-hyped” and “baseless”.
Aadhaar is just a unique identifier. Writing in the Hindustan Times today, Nilekani drew parallel with “another unique identifier” mobile number to explain his point. The former UIDAI chairman said that people living in urban places link their mobile number with several online services like Ola for cabs, Zomato for food, WhatsApp for messaging etc. But such linking doesn’t allow the mobile service provider to keep an eye on the users. “This is because ‘linking’ is a one-way process. Ola knows your Airtel number, but Airtel doesn’t get data from Ola,” Nilekani wrote.
He further explained a hypothetical situation – say all online service provider “collude” to share people’s data, even in that case the users would be free to use different sim cards for using different services. However, this is “impractical”. The answer to this, Nilekani says, is “tokenisation technology” which has already been announced by UIDAI.
What is tokenisation technology?
According to Nilekani, tokenisation technology, say in the case of mobile number, a different mobile number would be automatically assigned for different services a user links to. It would also allow the user to create own “virtual” mobile number if he/she wants.
UIDAI has already announced tokenisation, meaning the users would now get a virtual Aadhaar number. Nilekani says this has increased “privacy and security without compromising usability.”
The former UIDAI chief has further explained how the three new features launched by UIDAI have further made Aadhaar date safe. These include limited eKYC, token unique ID number to every organisation and also the option to generate personal virtual 16-digit virtual ID.
Driving further his point, cited a New York Times article that recently quoted an FBI agent as saying that a mobile number is “more dangerous than a social security number because it is in 10x more databases.”
Nilekani, however, complains the quality of debate around Aadhaar “leaves a lot to be desired”.