
Amazon Is Asking Indians to Hand Over Their Aadhaar Biometric ID - kmfrk
https://www.buzzfeed.com/pranavdixit/amazon-is-asking-indians-to-hand-over-their-aadhaar-indias
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kinkrtyavimoodh
Some clarifying info, since the title is kinda clickbait—the AADHAAR card
doesn't have any biometric info for it. It just has a number. The biometric
info lies with the government who can then authenticate an individual based on
it.

This whole AADHAAR linking business has been a point of contention in India
over the last year as the government is slowly mandating linking your AADHAAR
number with all kinds of contracts and services, from rental contracts to
telecom providers to bank accounts.

If anyone deserves blame for this kerfuffle, it's the government.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
Aadhaar is interesting to watch, given America's debate over using social
security numbers for the same purpose, and how to replace that in the wake of
Equifax. It seems like the winds are starting to align for us to have
something like Aadhaar, so it's interesting to see Indian reaction to it.

SSN for services is par for the course in the US. My cable company has mine.

~~~
Zak
> _SSN for services is par for the course in the US. My cable company has
> mine._

Which seems broken too. Why don't they just let you prepay for service such
that they don't need any identity information?

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Someone1234
Because a lot of services don't work without trust. Credit rating agencies are
the Certificate Authorities of the physical world.

To give an example, a company will hand you a $1K smartphone for as little as
$20. The only guarantee they have that you'll pay the remainder is that you
have a history of doing so, they gather this history from credit ratings
agencies.

In order for you to be uniquely identified they need a unique identifier. Even
full name + birth location + birthdate may not be unique given enough data-
points.

SSNs aren't fit-for-purpose. But the purpose of uniquely identifying an
individual is a valid one and likely a hole that will need to be filled one
way or another (and there are many good concepts to replace SSNs).

~~~
ams6110
But this doesn't seem responsive to the point. If I pre-pay for my phone and
service, why does Verizon still demand my SSN and other data? Why do they even
care who I am?

~~~
ash663
If by pre-pay you mean pay the full retail price, then you can do so without
any SSN.

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ganeshkrishnan
The slippery for aadhar card is on full display here. Few years back when this
biometric identity card was introduced the government promised not to make it
mandatory and now your cannot even shop online without this card.

~~~
thevardanian
If I'm being honest I would much rather have the government use something like
a public biometric ID number that uses biometrics to validate the number
rather than a broken SSN. I mean we already give our fingerprints to the DMV,
and to the Customs/Immigration desk when coming back from an international
flight.

In today's world not only is SSN vital to everyday life, it is also ironically
one of the least secure means to establish ID. Having your SSN out in the
public is potential financial ruin, and we generally need to hand out that
number to various private organization, and individuals. And if the Equifax
leaks are any indication SSNs are the weakest link in society.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
>I mean we already give our fingerprints to the DMV, and to the
Customs/Immigration desk when coming back from an international flight.

I'm not sure what country you live in, but US citizens most certainly are not
required to give their fingerprints to the DMV or Customs/Immigration when
flying internationally.

~~~
astura
There's more than 50 American DMVs, all the states plus DC and each of the
territories have their own. Do you really think you know everything about all
the requirements for an ID for all of them to make such a statement?

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finnn
Which DMVs require fingerprints?

~~~
astura
Please reread my post, I never claimed any did.

But anyway, off the top of my head:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/05/us/3-accused-of-murder-
in-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/05/us/3-accused-of-murder-in-a-plot-to-
get-1-million-in-insurance.html)

>The police later discovered that a thumbprint from the corpse did not match
the one on Mr. Hanson's California driver's license.

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hiyer
Amazon only requires id when you order from Amazon Global, and that's because
customs requires Indians to provide identity and address proof when you're
importing something. If you don't want to provide it to Amazon, you have the
option of providing it to the courier service (FedEx/Aramex/whatever). Also,
you can provide any other address proof like driving license, electricity
bill, voter id etc. Aadhaar is convenient because it is one of the few
documents that are accepted as proof of both identity and address (passport,
driving license, voter id and ration card are the others).

So, yes, clickbait article.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
Aadhaar is NOT a proof of address. Or Age. UIDAI has clarified it.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
The Aadhaar card has your birth year on it. How is it not a proof of age
within a maximum error of one year?

~~~
nileshtrivedi
They don't VERIFY the birth year. It is only as good as the other ID docs
submitted to them.

In their own words:
[https://twitter.com/UIDAI/status/934731727808774144](https://twitter.com/UIDAI/status/934731727808774144)

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deafcalculus
The local newspaper reported that the state government is asking for Aadhaar
when distributing free HIV medicine. That seems a lot more problematic.

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dingo_bat
Amazon is not asking for any biometrics. They are asking for your Adhaar
number. The government has an authentication API that can confirm your
identity for Amazon using the number. They can do this authentication by
email, by phone, or by fingerprints.

This whole FUD about Adhaar is really sad to see. It's a useful service and we
desperately need a national ID. Until now different things require different
IDs. Voting card, ration card, PAN card, Passport, Driving license, and so on.
With Adhaar we finally have the chance to move to one unique ID for every
citizen. Of course like everything done by government, there are
inefficiencies and bureaucracy, but it's markedly less than what we face in
other IDs.

~~~
nindalf
> whole FUD

I’m sorry you can’t see the privacy implications of Aadhaar. If it’s easy to
track every single place you go and every rupee you spend, it affects you in a
few ways

Citizens start self censoring themselves. They subconsciously stop engaging in
activities that are legal but might be traced back to them. I’ve personally
done many things that I’d rather people didn’t know about. I might have
dabbled in substances, for example. Maybe I might not have done that if I had
known that the eye of Big Brother was watching.

You say elsewhere you’re confident that whatever the abuses of the government,
we’d be able to vote them out. With the tracking ability they’ll have in a
couple of years, that might no longer be possible. Who would show up to a
protest if they knew the govt would be able to track them there?

Ultimately it comes down to this - Indians enjoy a lot of privacy and
anonymity because they’re one amongst 1.3 billion people. Paradoxically they
don’t value this much at all. Given a chance they’d gladly trade privacy for
wealth. It’s not my place to say if that’s a good trade or if they should make
it, but you don’t really know what you got till it’s gone.

~~~
dingo_bat
> If it’s easy to track every single place you go and every rupee you spend

How so? How can it make it easy to trace the ₹13 cash I used to buy a cig?

> I might have dabbled in substances, for example. Maybe I might not have done
> that if I had known that the eye of Big Brother was watching.

How does having a UID help the government in tracking your weed smoking
habits?

> With the tracking ability they’ll have in a couple of years, that might no
> longer be possible.

This is the point we go off the rails. You're delusional.

~~~
nindalf
> You're delusional.

I'm sorry you think so. I agree that I could have made my case better, and
normally I'd take a stab at it now that I have a full keyboard in front of me.
But your ad hominem attack makes it not worth my time.

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jakeogh
A ID number to buy stuff? I remember hearing about that somewhere. I think it
was an old book? Someone should tell China, their life gamification score
could benefit... ID theft and all.

