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Comment by firasd | Hacker News Reader

Yes, even the very poor in India have voter IDs and the schemes in question already require a ration card. You started off by asking about how to reduce corruption (and I answered that as long as there are subsidies there is going to be leakage) but you keep bringing it back to some airy theoretical concept about 'identity in the state' when Aadhaar is a practical force in the country right now. I haven't linked my Aadhaar to my phone yet and if the Supreme Court hadn't extended the deadline my phone would have stopped working by now. This thing is a real and present menace, not just a political science question.

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> I haven't linked my Aadhaar to my phone yet and if the Supreme Court hadn't extended the deadline my phone would have stopped working by now. This thing is a real and present menace, not just a political science question.

I guess you are attacking this issue keeping privacy in mind. However, from the Government's point of view, the need for linking mobile phones is to have a secured way of authenticating your Aadhaar related transactions. The Government doesn't want to end up in a liability if a situation arises where the OTP was sent to a person who later claims that the number did not belong to him in the first place. The Government is actually trying to protect itself from future litigations.

This is the same reason many services, including banks and credit card companies recommend 2-Factor Authentication. Since Aadhaar is primarily an authentication mechanism and not a tracking mechanism, authentication can only be performed either by scanning your fingerprints or via a trusted device through an OTP (in this case, your verified and trusted mobile number). Since a fingerprint scanner is not ubiquitous but a mobile is, the Government is for now relying on mobile OTP for conducting most authentications.

While your argument is sound (2-way linking with Aadhaar saves the government from litigation), it is not the argument that the GoI has made for SIM linking.

The AG has argued in court that mobile linking is to prevent terrorists from getting Aadhaar. This is on top of the weird order that DoT issued: https://www.huffingtonpost.in/chitranshul-sinha/no-the-supre...

(tl;dr: DoT quotes a Supreme Court ruling which questioned the government on KYC-norms for telecom industry, which the DoT conveniently reworded to mean "Aadhaar"-only)

You can also view it in the context that the previous AG wasn't working in government interest. In fact, there was a hue and cry about removal of the previous AG by Dr. Subramanian Swamy in the 2G scam case: https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/subrama...

The "terrorists" argument always seems like a big red herring in these discussions. But it's an interesting point that if the government decides you are a "terrorist", which maybe they can do without you ever being convicted of anything, you can be shut out of much of society by being deprived of I.D.

On the other hand, somebody the government doesn't suspect can simply sign up for I.D. like anybody else and carry out an attack at their convenience.

> airy theoretical concept

This is personal for you - I am not directly affected by Aaddaar. Perhaps you should step back and ponder the question I had posed. Aadhaar strikes a raw nerve among many. Similar to the debate over ACA in the US.

I am simply trying to understand why.

> I answered that as long as there are subsidies there is going to be leakage

It used to be the case before but is no longer the case. Aadhaar, even by this very article's admission, states that "Officials estimate that taxpayers have saved at least $9.4 billion from Aadhaar by weeding out “ghosts” and other improper beneficiaries of government services."

$9.4 billion is a huge amount of money saved by the exchequer. That is almost 2% of the India's annual budget. In a country with a very small tax base, every rupee saved is an earning in itself.

That is untrue - aadhar introduces the problem of false rejections.

First - Most of the savings which the govt has attributed to aadhar they later walked back and admited it was due to gas price reductions and not because of aadhar.

Second - auth failures result in people not getting their ration- these are then counted as savings by the govt. if they were correctly accounted as a liability not only would the savings vaporize, additional costs would appear.

So before Aadhaar, what required govt photo ID or tax ID verification in India?

In the USA for example, you need photo ID & a SSN to open pretty much any financial account or to fly. Many businesses require ID to do business with them on an adhoc basis. I also know in many countries ID is required to open any telecom account.

Is the fact that aadhaar is attached to biometrics and the fear of future genocide the root of the controversy?

We have a PAN-system which was used for all financial transactions, including things like company registrations, tax filings, bank accounts, loans etc.

Now, you must link your Aadhaar with your:

- PAN, before you can file a tax or register a company

- Bank Account, or else it could be shut down (this was pushed down the parliament via a amendment to the prevention of money laundering act)

Most countries have varying KYC-norms. However, Aadhaar is a very-weak KYC-source. It doesn't require proof of citizenship (foreigners can get aadhaar) or residence (you are required to stay for 180 days in India, but UIDAI doesn't verify this). It doesn't verify proof of residence either (it was meant as a identity document for everyone - even those without homes). Add this to the fact that UIDAI has fired half of the agencies on grounds of fraud who were responsible for Enrollment.

There are a lot more issues with Aadhaar: there is a no proper security procedure, no audit reports have been published ever, and despite the numerous breaches, UIDAI refuses to take a proper stance.

Again voter ID or ration card is not unique.

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