UID Project Details Leaked
Indian Government’s ambitious Unique ID project that will impart unique identity number to each and every resident will change the way social welfare systems are delivered to the mass.
The UID project does have it’s technology challenge and ofcourse, privacy concerns. There are a few subtle information about UID project that are described as follows:
- The UID number will only provide identity: The UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements.
- The UID will prove identity, not citizenship: All residents in the country can be issued a unique ID. The UID is proof of identity and does not confer citizenship.
- Partnership Model : The UIDAI will be the regulatory authority managing a Central ID Data Repository (CIDR), which will issue UID numbers, update resident information, and authenticate the identity of residents as required. In addition, the Authority will partner with agencies such as central and state departments and private sector agencies who will be ‘Registrars’ for the UIDAI.
- The UIDAI will issue a number, not a card.
- UID number will not contain intelligence: Loading intelligence into identity numbers makes them susceptible to fraud and theft. The UID will be a random number.
- Online authentication: The Authority will offer a strong form of online authentication, where agencies can compare demographic and biometric information of the resident with the record stored in the central database
- UID will store basic information like Name/Date&Place of Birth/Gender/Father’s Name/Mother’s Name/Address/Expiry Date/Photograph and Finger Prints
- The UIDAI will not share resident data:The agencies may store the information of residents they enrol if they are authorized to do so, but they will not have access to the information in the UID database. The UIDAI will answer requests to authenticate identity only through a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response.
What’s your opinion on UID’s privacy
Via: A document, “Creating a Unique Identity Number for Every Resident in India” that was leaked on the Internet (via) last Friday.
Recommended Read: National Government ID Project – Leapfrog or Catch-up? SIM card vs Smart Card?
-
Related posts:
- UID Project plans to introduce micro-payment platform for Rural India
- Tracking Technology in UID Project [Series]
- News: Mumbai’s First Digital Library Launched, Indian Railways to go Contactless Smart Card Route
- Hygiene in UID Project [Technical Analysis]
- Weekly Recap – National Govt. ID Project, ecommerce design, Cleantech investment in India..and more
About the author - Manish is an engineering student and is currently working on his startup idea.
To early to take a call. The project is gargantuan and it’d not be in the best of interests for us countrymen to be skeptical from the beginning.
cheers,
Arvind
Saying that the details were leaked is wrong. These details have been in public domain for a while. I was disappointed to see such a headline from you guys.
The details (i.e. the pdf doc) came out in public domain only on Friday..and wasn’t meant to be out to public so soon.
Nandan Nilekani talked about these details on the Devil’s Advocate with Karan Thapar around a month ago. The India Today report itself is nothing more than sensationalism.
Wrong. These details are available since months ago you published here.
Please research more before creating such sensationalist blogs of no value.
When Govt. gives details of future projects, one accuses of “leaks”! And, when they refuse to give details, one accuses of lack of transparency! We already have such sensational non-sense in our media. Lets not do it here.
I wasted my 5 minutes reading your post.
I dont understand why this is suppose to be a technological challenge. We have only 1.2 billion records and years of time. Compare this to stock market where 100 millions of records are sorted and processed in real time.
This is a technological challenge. Because huge amount of data collection is involved from each and every individual who is residing in every nook and corner of our big country.
If you talk to any person who is involved in census, he can tell about the gigantic nature of the problem.
Aprt from this, many groups of people in our society (I am not talking about people who move from one city to other in flights) are highly mobile. Tracking them and gathering the data from them it self is a gigantic task.
For issuing of ration cards, people may be ready to provide their personal data and they may not be willing to provide their personal data for this purpose. One has to really patient enough to convice them.
The data has to be collected in multiple languages and then the same has to rationalized.
This project doesn’t have any technological challenge. Challenge is in the operation of project.
yea man, there is no technology challenge at all. They are so stupid to hire Infosys CEO to do the job. Any average freelancer can do the job!
1.2 billion records is nothing for a database systems available now itself.
But I think, collecting data, compiling it, avoid omission and duplication…
Think, how many ways you write your name, how many ways you write your address…
One suggestion I’m having is the standardisation of naming the individuals in our country, atleast the future generation. Still I think it is next to acceptable, but still could think of.
Instead of asking 1.2 Billion people to change names, its easier to do small change in software.
Isn’t it too lenghty, the 16 digit id for a lay man ??
10-digit itself is more than sufficient, which can accommodate 10 billion (999 Crore) individuals, compared we are only 1.2 billion as of now. I think 12 digit could be the max, considering all the cons.
All People in China and Vietnam carry a paper ID card with an 18 digit number. so this is not a challenge.
Challenge is Mindset.
Elsewhere people have made a brouhaha of this project. This is no big shit. Come on !! Indians are capable and even illiterate farmers are capable. On the software and technology side our country has been able to solve many issues so no issues.
On logistics and operational challenges, this project is worth taking on those challenges. Besides we have been able to conduct the largest elections without such system smoothly so this is only 3 times the size of that project. No big deal.
Just relax and give full support. Better we improve our country than suffer like our neighbor on west.
Jai Hind
Yet another self obsessed moron with a fad called ‘jai hind’. Get over it brother. It is not a fight for azaadi anymore. Elections in india are as much farcical as they would be for China.
Raise your bum before reality kicks it hard. lol
Typical anti-hindu Communist who loves to keep his head in sand below 10 feets, refusing to accept reality of emerging India but loves to ape Yoga just because West has adopted it.
Soon, Western astronomers & scientists will unravel relation between Astrology and inter-planetary cosmic ray science & will start worshipping science behind Kundali.
Jai Hind.
I hear there are technical challenges, there are operational challenges etc..But I don’t get the problem yet..why all 1.2 billion population have to get them at once..sure, design has to be for 1.2 or may be 2 billion.
But to start with if we start issuing it at the birth and track at death and then the existing population will take their own sweet time to get their UID.
Success of this program would not be by coverage of entire population but by really keeping id “unique” for a person. If 1 person gets more than couple of UIDs like PAN no.s, then it’s same old story.
But with Nandan at the helm, I’m pretty confident it will be a great success story for the years to come.
Same person can’t get two IDs because system will refuse it.
Please give me one uid. how much you charge me?
Why you need UID?
Important Question to ask is how will the Govt handle Data Security and Data Privacy. As we all know how our Govt offices are. misuse of information is biggest risk and is one of concern of mine.
This is exactly the excuse babus used for keeping country away from effective IT systems.
USA has similar system and it is being misused too. You can’t prevent it.
But for fear of misuse against 5 people, we can’t ignore benefits it will bring to other 1000 people.
The point here is, misuse will be far less compared to its benefits.
Gotcha
Guys, This is sort of National Insurance Number which is there in U.K. Which does exactly the same but, with that number you’ll pay your tax there.
Government!! Is there any brainstorming idea?? Come on please..
Same rules apply in UK, but that number not even an identity.. Don’t know whats the real use of it.. I say no, cuz wts the necessity now..
May be useful for credit details{centralised databases of banks (Pan card does this anyway)}, voting(voters id does this anyway), License (Driving license does this anyway), ration details(ration card does this anyway), watelse??
With this UID if i could open an account in anybank without any single question, if I can vote, if i can get my passport, if I can get my license, if I can get my ration details, vagera vagera vagera yes..
Else come on save a quite good amount of money, try to use that money for developing other sectors.
Stop paying huge giants [Yahoo, Google or whoever] and start developing India..
Vishnu
Yahoo, Google are not part of this project. Its being executed by Indian companies only due to security reasons.
Dear all,
I was invited as a guest lecturer by organizers of 12th Workshop on biomedical informatics and communications, JBTDRC, MIGMS, Wardha and I delivered a lecture on use of UID in Healthcare. I will be happy to receive your comments on this presentation.
from http://www.dataonweb.com/UDHI/UID_IN_Healthcare.ppt.
Thanks and regards
Dr Rajeev Joshi
Dear Dr.
It was a very well prepared presentation. Thanks to you for offering us a chance to go through your presentation.
While I do not fully accept all your points, there cannot be any doubt a singularly identifying number along with associated data would help in maintaining comprehensive health and other related particulars of a person.
But then, we as citizens of this country, already have too many id cards; starting from the all powerful ration card, pan card, voter id card, driving license and so many others. The UID or the UID card, if a new card really comes in will be one more of this many. What does it add in value more than what is already existing in one or many of these? Why should there be an exercise of registration once more? In what way you can stop the duplicates in this card? Do you think fingerprint is foolproof for duplication?
Let us start with fingerprint. I have been working with personal identification systems for almost 25 years. I have introduced almost every kind of id in industries including ATM like machines. My software work with some of the banks in this country as well.
Fingerprints are not really comfortable to use. In the first place, most of the laborers do not have a proper fingerprint! People who work in the textile mills, people who work in foundries and many many other laborers do not have one. You will fail if you try to register their fingerprints. I have tried and failed. We have actually tried multiple fingers, palm prints. May be retina imagery might be fool proof. But can India afford that cost?
The immediate corollary of this statement is that there can be duplicates of UID for the same person. The UID is no more UID after that. One person can have more than one UID!
The brief for the UIDAI is not to issue cards. But only the numbers. Where and how these numbers will be used and what is the relationship to the PAN number? or are we supposed to have one more PAN card with the UID number or will the PAN number exist independently? The same questions are valid for every one of the other id cards that exist now; for passport, for ration card, for voter id and others as well. And there are tax ids like service tax numbers which are in turn dependent on pan numbers?
Now, will UID help in any of the below operations?
The rigged state elections, Without a really unique number the entire exercise will be a farce. How can there be uniqueness if the methodology taken is fingerprinting? If some one says it will be unique, it will be a joke. People who worked on it in real id projects will know it is not.
Widespread embezzlement that affects subsidies and poverty alleviation programs. I really do not know how an unique id will help in this. Because most of the embezzlement is in wrong delivery and UID is not maintaining UIDs with unique addresses or community (you may read it as caste) mapping. That is a far fetched exercise and is not in the immediate scope of the Authority.
Illegal immigration into India. Joke! Instead of picking up a ration card, the illegal immigrant will pick up a new UID. That is the only difference. The problem is in creating UIDs of all existing citizens completely. Only if this can be achieved, this objective will be realized. But that is not in the list of objectives. Taking UID is not a must even for the citizens of this country!
Terrorist threats. Will continue to exist. Only difference will be, you might find the terrorist also has an UID of India along with a Pakistani passport! And Pakistan will have one more excuse to say that he is not a Pakistani!
Sorry, Doctor, none of the objectives mentioned will be met by the UID.
True, there should be a unique number required to identify people in this country. But then, will UID be any different from the others that already exist. And in what way, will it add value? Absolutely none.
The ideal solution will be to take up one of the existing numbers and remove the lacunae in them one by one; making them more suitable for our Indian conditions. DO NOT copy a western method. It will not work here. Design something that is needed for the country.
My suggestion will be the PAN number. Most possibly, no terrorist will be a tax payer! Even if there is one, we still could pickup the PAN number as a unique number. Of course, it is not unique. There are duplicates across the country. Try and eliminate that. Find out the reasons behind the duplication and remove them.
Then, with the newly armed duplicate free PAN database or minimum duplicate PAN database, go for covering the rest of the country whether they pay tax or not.
Expand the pan number laterally and vertically, covering all adults and then all ages. Start registering at birth too! Your PAN number might become a PIN number too.
Bring the whole thing on electronic media and make change of address and other services over the net. Remove birth certificates being issued by local authorities and place it on the net. This should include community and death and all other personal certificates. The person or authority perusing the certificates have to cross check the same with the server before accepting the validity of the certificates.
If it is not done this way eliminating duplicates and making use of the existing number for the purpose, it will be a wasteful effort and a repeat of what happens with the ration card or voter id card.
Thank you for the patient reading and the opportunity you gave to express my thoughts.
Regards
Shan
Hello Shan,
Thanks for your mail.
>>
While I do not fully accept all your points, there cannot be any doubt a singularly identifying number along with associated data would help in maintaining comprehensive health and other related particulars of a person.
<<
Uses of UID other than healthcare have been published elsewhere, I have just enlisted them.
I have just tried to highlight its utility in healthcare which is extremely important but seems to be ignored by UIDAI.
Thanks again
Rajeev
Its about priorities. Healthcare should be second priority. Food is first priority for a poor country, health comes after that.
And, anyways, software is made in stages. Windows 95 never had those features which Windows XP provided. So, don’t loose your heart, UID 2.0 will have much better ideas but let UID 1.0 complete first.
If UID is wasteful then every other ID project from PAN ID, Voter ID, Ration ID, Passport ID are wasteful too.
Raise your head out of sand and you will see benefits of UID.