Rajya Sabha Debates Aadhaar Ecosystem

Minister of Law, Justice, and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad tried to quell voices raised against Aadhaar in his concluding statements.

Prasad said that Aadhaar will not be mandatory to receiving welfare benefits. Alternate identity proofs such as a passport or a driving license can be used, he added.

He argued that with Aadhar the misuse of subsidies can be addressed. Prasad claimed that these benefits of people in rural areas were claimed by village heads, and Aadhar solves the problem.

Prasad proclaimed that Aadhaar, and its data is completely safe. He distinguished between core biometrics and demographic information which are defined in the act. He added that no religion, income, medical history, ethnicity or education is being profiled, hence making Aadhaar foolproof.

Only minimum information from the Aadhaar system will be utilised for verification, Prasad clarified.

The government has been blacklisting operators that share data from the Aadhaar system. It has blacklisted 34,000 operators, and has taken action against 1,000 of them, the minister stated.

Prasad set addressing infrastructure issues as the first priority with Aadhaar. He also said that the UIDAI will be accountable to the parliament.

Uttar Pradesh parliamentarian Pratap Shukla cited a World Bank report, saying that it had called it more secure than the social security system of U.S.

Loopholes exist in all systems, but those loopholes are used to make it better, he said. He added that the government will ensure everyone's privacy, and that more subsidies should be linked to Aadhaar.

Only 27 percent of villages have banking facilities within 5 kilometers, hence the government should address infrastructure issues before proceeding with Aadhaar, said V. Vijaysai Reddy of YSR Congress Party from Andhra Pradesh.

The average state preparedness for Aadhaar is 12 percent, while for some it is still zero, he said adding that the biometrics based systems suffer from infrastructure issues.

Reddy questioned why the act prevents the aggrieved from going to court.

He praised some aspects of Aadhaar, such as the its linking with the Permanent Account Number (PAN) card. This, he said, was justified to mitigate the generation of black money and duplicate PAN cards.

Communist Party leader D Raja again raised concerns about MongoDB, the New York based startup that UIDAI signed a contract with for capturing and analysing data in Aadhaar.

Raja had earlier questioned the firms' security when UPA was in power and had introduced the Aadhaar card.

The contract raises eyebrows as MongoDB is part funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Raja questioned representatives of BJP and UPA that if such data was safe with a foreign company.

Raja, who does not have an Aadhaar card, said that it cannot be thought of as a universal wand for all problems. He argued that its scientifically proven that biometrics change after a certain age and hence in such cases citizens would be deprived of social services.

The Aadhaar Act is in violation of the original mandate with which it was brought into force, said parliamentarian and Supreme Court advocate K.T.S. Tulsi . He referred to Section 29 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, which doesn't permit any data stored with UIDAI to be shared with anyone whatsoever.

Later, he added, a provision was made for voluntary agreement to allow the sharing of data.

The Supreme Court lawyer cited the scrapping of Australia's social service access card project in 2007, where the government concluded it was very difficult to protect such data. He also referred to the positions of U.K. and France on similar systems.

Tulsi called the Aadhaar database a “heaven for hackers”. He added that national security is threatened too with China and Pakistan as neighbours if such data is made readily available.