I realize this may be a very american perspective, but I can't imagine any tradeoff that would make this "worth it" for me.
Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither. - Benjamin Franklin.
Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither. - Benjamin Franklin.
This is essentially SSN implemented in the 21st century. And you can't get a job, buy/rent a house, or get a bank account without an SSN
The fact that you can be anonymous in the U.S. and still live a life inside of regular society is a complete myth. And I think most people accept the fact that the SSN is in fact necessary.
India does not have any such system, instead of the SSN, they have ten different numbers attached to a person. All this does is make the ID part of it uniform.
The biometric part is not the focus here, the ID part is, which pretty much every developed country already has. The biometric part is just a means to get the ID part done better.
Just to reiterate, I understand the liberty v/s security implications, but americans have already given theirs up for security, so maybe that's just the price to pay of being a developed nation.
The closest thing we have to an ID that every citizen has is an IRD number for the purposes of tax. You would give that to your bank and your employer so that they can pay tax on your behalf, but even that is optional. If you don't provide it then they will assume that you pay tax at the highest rate.
Compare to when I was staying a friends house in the US and heard him give his SSN to the phone company when he was troubleshooting his internet. I find it baffling that you would need a government issued ID number just to form a relationship with a phone company.
I guess with this: "The fact that you can be anonymous in the U.S. and still live a life inside of regular society is a complete myth."
True
" And I think most people accept the fact that the SSN is in fact necessary."
False.
"I understand the liberty v/s security implications, but americans have already given theirs up for security, so maybe that's just the price to pay of being a developed nation."
What??????
Good God man! Americans have made a HUGE number of EXTREMELY bad decisions, from insane foreign policy to eating so much crap we are dying from it, to bankrupting ourselves!
"just the price to pay of being a developed nation." NOT!!!!
Just total insane stupidity! Do not copy the U.S.!
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
Without the word "essential", this quote sounds very absolute and idealistic, which was of course not the intention.
Heck leave alone our country men and their talent at finding loopholes or the corruption of our system.
When I know first hand that the debate internally amongst the world bank and nandan nilekani went from trying to tackle the privacy issues to "my role is to give every Indian a number" (second hand quote) my hair stands on end.
Not to mention that the system already creates duplicates and overlaps, which then compound which each subsequent generation.
Or the fact that we already have bad data from outsourcers who just jammed info into the system, or the fact that the laptops were stolen. I think we lost data recently too.
This is just a bad idea.
In terms of liberty - a biometric id is, by definition, an "involuntary" identity. It's something you're unable to change or refuse to yield, even if you choose to. A person with a non-biometric identity can freely destroy all forms of that identity and then they cannot be identified any more by it. They have the freedom to produce it when they wish to be identified, and to choose not to when they wish to remain anonymous. A biometric identity is a non "opt out" identity. It can never be changed or altered, and can be forcibly read by anybody with physical control over you. Hence there is a great loss of liberty in a biometric identity, and when you really think it through, almost no advantages that can't be obtained from a non-biometric identity.