India's Billion Digital Identities
thefinanser.com
thefinanser.com
Old Govt. offices atleast used to work, and had forms in local languages. Now, you need to have,
- A scanner, to have all your documents scanned
- A printer, to get a "printout" of the receipts
- A computer with internet
- A shit ton of patience, since the sites barely work.
... and of course, all the forms are now only in English (courtesy of your "nationalistic" regime - you're welcome!).
Of course, you'll still need to go to the Govt. office (where files provide for rat fodder and pigeon litter) to give them the receipts and stuff. I imagine, this is how most conversations end up,
"No what do you mean you don't have a computer, or speak English ? Get out of here you pleb!"
Digital India my arse. My parents are sick of this moronic hyped up shit - there is no fallback now either, nor is there some accessibility help. I can't imagine how this helps the mute 90%, if its such a bloody pain even to the top 5%.
Now this UIDAI thing. Removing this massive big-brotherish database was on the election manifesto; instead Modi gave his blessing (he's after all a re-incarnation of Vishnu[2]) after coming under the spell of Nilekani. It's now being pushed heavily, ostensibly as some "magic wand" that can fix India's leaky bureaucracy - problems which in reality could've been fixed by simple bank a/c numbers.
The Supreme court of India, which in the middle of its supreme quest to civilize the "barbarians", directed the state to make sure this additional layer be made non-mandatory; obviously this directive is routinely ignored.
I'm extremely wary of this additional layer which was essentially pushed down our throats with barely any public consultation.
It's anybody's guess how this kleptocracy will use such information in the future. I expect to see a massive roll-out of online censorship/internet spying in the future - even "liberals" [1] in India are calling for ID regulated internet access. Perhaps, once the time-servers are kicked out in '19, Madame, her highness, the Queen of India, Sonia Gandhi, and his highness, his excellency Sir. Rahul Gandhi, Prince of India, can bless us with this marvelous policies, and bring about another glorious age of slavery.
However, I am curious about your experience in India. I browsed through your comment history and I sense your loathing mixed with pessimism of all things Indian. Would you care to share your experience ? How did your experience shape you ? I am genuinely curious.
Yes, change has happened, and it got much faster after the 1991 reforms, but what has that to do with digital india?
Calling Jugnoo/uber/ola = companies serving customers.
Pay bills for water/elec/banking = same as above.
Residential ownership digitized - as are several other records, and this has been going on for a while.
To get a phone you need proof of ID, and aadhar isnt the only one.
BUT - in my life time I have seen it become compulsory to provide ID when you go to stay at a hotel (this is from before 2005), extensive ID to buy... well almost anything.
Want to know who got what medicines, then got onto a flight, and went to which hotel, along with other persons who went to the same place?
Well thats the system we are building.
And the aadhar team has by design (and I know that some of those guys probably come to HN) created a "market place" style system. Anyone can and is supposed to use their infra to validate ID data.
Thing is, I am old enough (and not even that old) to remember when you didn't need it. When there were not scanners in front of malls and in front of hotels (post 26/11 additions. I saw them come up).
The west built their success with systems which worked, not tech magic bullets, and thats always what counts in the end
There are some challenges to address. You still have to deal with the bureaucracy. E.g. I went to apply Aadhar for my wife at my local municipality office. The person who was distributing the application form asked me to come after 5 hours. The reason he gave was there is some meeting going on and he can't give the form to me until the meeting was over. I had to then involve my ward councilor and the chairman(mayor) to get the form. Now official gave a different reason. People are wasting the forms, so we are not distributing it. I thought you must be kidding me. Since I knew the elected officials I got these forms. Think about people who don't know important people in that office.
There are privacy concerns about Aadhar. Government need not collect biometric information for Aadhar. They should have made Aadhar similar to US social security number instead of collecting biometrics.
[1] https://digilocker.gov.in/ [2] https://twitter.com/deepakshenoy/status/744208624545763329
> A scanner, to have all your documents scanned > A printer, to get a "printout" of the receipts
You only do it once.
> A shit ton of patience, since the sites barely work.
Check the new Indian govt websites, they are resposnsive with great UX.
> magic wand" that can fix India's leaky bureaucracy - problems which in reality could've been fixed by simple bank a/c numbers.
That's what GOI used before. People created multiple bank accounts with fake id's. Aadhar with it's biometric validation helps avoid this.
People i know who do agriculture get alerts from Govt agencies about soil health in certain area, fertilizer availability, online govt market place to sell cotton/grains(paddy,green gram etc).
I recently visited a Bangalore One office to get my Aadhar Card and my experience was one of convenience and pleasantness.
1) The forms were offered in English + Kannada. 2) The government workers who helped me out spoke English, Hindi, and Kannada. 3) To apply for the Aadhar card you didn't need to have anything scanned before you got there. If you had the original documents, they scanned it on site.