:: Antara Dev Sen

UID: Identity crisis

By Antara Dev Sen

Aug 06 : Have you ever had an identity (ID) card with an error? Your name misspelled, maybe, or an incorrect address, date of birth or father’s name? Have you ever felt an urge to hide information from the police or administration, even if you are blameless? Have you experienced soul-sickening frustration in dealing with government officials even about the most obvious matters? If you answer yes to any of the above — and I suspect you will — then you probably dread the Unique Identification (UID) project.

A high-powered council of ministers (from Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram to Kapil Sibal and Montek Singh Ahluwalia) was set up this week for the UID project headed by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. The world’s largest citizen’s database in a democracy, it aims to streamline the delivery of public services by giving every Indian a unique ID number. Complete with biometric identification, this mother of all IDs will expose parts of you that other IDs cannot reach.

Which, in an ideal situation, could be a good thing. But given our talent for goof ups and mind-numbing corruption, the UID may well become the Undoing Indian Democracy project. Here’s why.

First, it would violate our privacy, a fundamental right of free citizens in a democracy. Critical information about you will be offered to precisely those you wish to keep it from — cops and other sarkari pests. Lying to the police is our survival instinct. Bribing them is an acquired trait. "Encounters" and custody killings are rampant. Systemic corruption, political influence and a culture of impunity have largely made our police an enemy of the people, especially of the powerless.

UID information could be abused — to blackmail, to sell or to spy on political opponents. Unethical rulers could use this data to inflict enormous damage. Even the limited demographic information now available had allegedly helped rioters to systematically kill Sikhs during the 1984 Delhi massacre and Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat carnage. Besides, the UID could be used for widespread surveillance, turning our lively democracy into a veiled police state.

Second, the wise say it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. Errors in this "super ID" would be disastrous. And there will be errors. Why, even when we were trying to persuade Pakistan to claim the 26/11 terrorists, we sent them the wrong DNA report for Ajmal Amir Kasab as proof. Never mind, shrugged home minister P. Chidambaram, "it’s a minor clerical error". Data devils rule our lives. We hop between a multiplicity of imperfect IDs and get by. Which would be impossible with a unique but flawed super ID. And anyone who has ever attempted to rectify an incorrect government document knows what a superhuman task that is.

Third, it will be forged. Mr Nilekani himself has admitted that the UID is not fraud-proof, it could check only the fraud arising out of duplication of IDs. The UID would need a huge database of private information that is easily accessible by authorised officials (like corrupt cops and callous clerks), and keeping this identity data secure is practically impossible. Identity theft is a huge problem even in the US, a country paranoid and pernickety about data security. Besides hackers and glint-eyed insiders, data is also threatened by viruses and computer failures. A super ID like this would be invaluable in the hands of identity thieves, and just as we have a roaring racket in fake passports and ration cards, we shall soon see a booming business of fake UIDs.

Then what? A few years ago there was the Mritak Party of India, whose frustrated members, officially declared dead, fought the elections just to prove that they were alive. Ordinary citizens won’t have the time, money, energy or contacts to reclaim their identity from a callous government and powerful mafia. They would just be harassed, abused and punished for crimes committed by others in their name.

So, fourth, the idea that the UID will enhance internal security is rubbish. IDs are routinely faked by terrorists. The 9/11 terrorists had convincing fake IDs. And the more powerful the ID, the greater the incentive to fake it. Which makes the UID the obvious choice for any self-respecting terrorist. And since the UID would possibly depend on other identity documents (like passport, ration card, voter’s ID, BPL card etc), which are routinely faked, it wouldn’t be that difficult to get a fake UID.

Fifth, IDs do not stop terrorism. Knowing someone’s identity does not reveal his intentions. It doesn’t prevent suicide missions either. It can only lead to religious and ethnic profiling of terrorist suspects, which destroys democratic freedoms.

Sixth, UIDs would not stop illegal immigrants. For example, about two crore Bangladeshis already live in India, most of whom have voter’s IDs or ration cards, thanks to votebank politics. They would all be entitled to the UID.

While, seventh, migrant workers, and those without documents proving permanent residence or citizenship (like millions of poverty-stricken Indians), could be denied the UID. And thus be more securely excluded from access to public services and welfare. They will actually be more vulnerable, harassed by cops and local administrative officials precisely because they don’t have this UID.

Eighth, when almost half the country is plagued by extremists and failure of governance, how would residents of disturbed areas get proper UIDs? Will the UIDs in Lalgarh, for example, or troubled parts of Kashmir or the Northeast, be credible? A flawed government machinery, especially at the local level, that arms people with an all-powerful ID creates a greater threat than sneaky insurgents hiding in jungles.

In short, the UID in a callous and corrupt atmosphere is very worrying. Power is misused, and the UID offers great power. To ensure delivery of public services one needs to first clean up the distribution process; bringing in the UID, hoping it will eradicate corruption, is putting the cart before the horse. A flawed system would produce flawed IDs. The thousands of crores this will suck up could perhaps be better applied to targeted development, rather than a humongous blanket ID in a rattletrap, semi-literate, underfed, corrupt system with no accountability.

While the government brays loudly for consensus and public debate on an unethical law like Section 377 that affects a fraction of the population, it curiously hasn’t suggested a debate on privacy, personal liberty, state control and the effects of the UID that will affect every single citizen. Only a real public debate could prevent the UID from becoming the Undoing Indian Democracy project.

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com