Reasons why the Standing Committee on Finance rejected the UIDAI Bill

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16 Dec, 2011, 10.33AM IST, M Rajshekhar,ET Bureau
Reasons why the Standing Committee on Finance rejected the UIDAI Bill

NEW DELHI: In perhaps its most serious setback so far, a Parliamentary
Committee has rejected the Bill that governs the project to assign
unique Ids to all Indians. Worse, this Standing Committee on Finance
has advised the government to "reconsider and review the UID scheme"
itself. Its report was placed in Parliament on Tuesday. These, then,
are its seven primary objections.

Why was the UIDAI functioning even before the Bill was passed?

Even as it awaited Parliamentary approval, the Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIDAI) was collecting information and issuing
numbers. The Ministry of Planning, under which the UIDAI falls, told
the Standing Committee that the UIDAI could function under the
executive order issued by the government till the Bill was passed.

The committee has described this executive action as "unethical and
violative of Parliament's prerogatives". It also says the "Committee
is at a loss to understand as to how the UIDAI, without statutory
power, could address key issues concerning its basic functioning and
initiate proceedings against the defaulters and penalise them." It
also says that two citizenship acts need to be amended before
collection of biometric information and its linkage with personal
information of individuals.

IT DID NOT WORK IN THE UK. SO, WHY HERE?

The UK abandoned its National ID card programme some years ago. A
study by the London School of Economics on the UK project flagged high
costs, complexity, untested unreliable technology, possibility of risk
to safety and security of citizens, requirement of high standard
security measures which might again escalate operational costs.

The Ministry of Planning told the panel that the two programmes were
different. The UK approached the programme from a security
perspective. The UID scheme is envisaged as a means to enhance the
delivery of welfare benefits and services. The panel says: "As these
(UK) findings are very much relevant and applicable to the UID scheme,
they should have been seriously considered."

WILL IT ENSURE WELFARE PAYMENTS REACH THE TARGETED BENEFICIARIES?

According to the Ministry of Planning, UID will make it possible to
link welfare entitlements to targeted beneficaries. But, the committee
noted: "Even if the Aadhaar number links entitlements to targeted
beneficiaries, it may not ensure that beneficiaries have been
correctly identified. Thus, the present problem of proper
identification would persist."

WHAT ABOUT PRIVACY?

The Ministry of Planning told the Committee that concerns over privacy
violations - sharing of data, surveillance and profiling -- would be
addressed in a larger data protection legislation currently being
drafted by the Department of Personnel and Training.

The committee has said the enactment of this data protection law is a
"pre-requisite for any law that deals with large-scale collection of
information from individuals and its linkages across separate
databases."

IS THE UID PROJECT FINANCIALLY FEASIBLE?

The Ministry of Planning says the financial implications of the scheme
have not been studied. The Committee was critical of this exclusion,
as well as of the fact that the cost of rolling out Aadhaar was not
compared with the cost of providing existing forms of identity. The
Committee also noted that Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the UID
Scheme has been done much later in April, 2011. "The Committee thus
strongly disapproves of the hasty manner in which the UID scheme has
been approved."

IS THE UID PROJECT TECHNICALLY FEASIBLE?

The Committee refers to the report by the Biometrics Standards
Committee set up by the UIDAI that says the uniqueness of fingerprints
has been established for a set of 50 million, with 99% accuracy, using
good-quality fingerprints. Adds the Biometrics Standards Committee
"Retaining efficacy while scaling the database size from 50 million to
a billion has not been adequately analyzed. Second, fingerprint
quality, the most important variable for determining de-duplication
accuracy, has not been studied in depth in the Indian context." Given
this context, the Committee felt it is unlikely that the proposed
objectives of the UID scheme could be achieved.

SHOULD CARDS BE GIVEN TO CITIZENS OR RESIDENTS?

UID gives cards to all residents in India, legal and illegal. The
Committee has questioned this. The Committee says: "The Committee is
unable to understand the rationale of expanding the scheme to persons
who are not citizens, as this entails numerous benefits proposed by
the Government. It also says that "the possibility of possession of
aadhaar numbers by illegal residents through false
affidavits/introducer system cannot be ruled out."

The report now leaves the Manmohan Singh government in a tough place.
It has to decide whether to reject the Committee report or overhaul
the UIDAI project given the committee's sweeping rejection. The report
also makes it harder for the NPR to go on collecting biometric
information without making the necessary changes to the Citizenship
Act.