

India creating new identity card system for 1.2Bn people - haasted
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13962574

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dkarl
Wow, they are going to be the first country to self-consciously grapple with
all kinds of fascinating privacy issues that emerge from this kind of system.
In most countries, as far as I know, privacy depends on the crappiness of
government IT and the difficulty of systems integration. It's mostly
accidental. In a powerful, well-designed system, you have to _decide_ to have
privacy. This is an exciting prospect -- India is by far not the worst country
to be investigating these issues. They are democratic and are familiar with
the problems of corrupt officials. I think people in countries where
corruption is not a problem are too willing to trust the good intentions of
their government officials. It's very educational to see how ruthless and
venal people are when systems are not in place to stop them.

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pmorici
I'm curious which countries your are thinking of where government corruption
is _not_ a problem?

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dkarl
In the US, citizens don't have to pay bribes, perhaps with the exception of
getting government business. You don't have to pay bribes to get a marriage
license, get a crime investigated, get your garbage collected, get fair
treatment in court, or get your child admitted to a good school.

Larger-scale, more obscure corruption thrives. Everybody knows that most
political campaign contributions are made with the expectation of a return on
investment. If you're an ordinary citizen, though, you don't have to worry
about being shaken down by a bureaucrat or a traffic cop.

~~~
seshagiric
It is not just the basic facilities. Corruption hits in a lot of other ways
also.

The traffic sucks because most traffic police are jerking off somewhere. If
you want to get something done (e.g. setup a business) you should know someone
with influence. A new risk in big cities is if you own a land there is a risk
of the property being forcibly occupied by a thug and the police wouldn't do
much.

~~~
aita
Ambani(Relience fame) built an empire in the same country where you live in.
Don't blame the system.

~~~
seshagiric
If you read the comment properly - I am not blaming the system. Only pointing
the current ills in it and hoping he UID scheme cuts down at least some of
them.

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rams
I had predicted here ( [http://cycle-gap.blogspot.com/2009/06/all-honourable-
men.htm...](http://cycle-gap.blogspot.com/2009/06/all-honourable-men.html) ):

"As the good old days of inflated head counts and billing rates comes to an
end for Indian outsourcing companies, the big outsourcing companies will bid
for, and push for huge local government projects."

It's amazing how uncritically such huge projects are treated by the press in
India - privacy issues, potential conflict of interest for the person leading
this effort (Nilekani). Public discussion in India in general is very
worshipful of proposals like this or the usage of voting machines - there is
little to no discussion of the meta issues like privacy, corruption, etc.

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seshagiric
Nilekani is the current CEO of Infosys. He has already stated he is going to
step down from Infosys before taking up the effort to create an India wide
UID. Bidding for this mega project will be an international one, with some
Israeli companies already showing interest (in addition to Indian majors like
Infosys, TCS, Wipro...).

So the question is not as much as about conflict of interest as it is about
the success of the project. This will be the third such attempt - Seshan's
voter ID, the PAN card and now the UID.

From anti-corruption point of view, this is really going to be helpful. Any
government aid etc can be tracked using the UID (i.e. to see who the
beneficiary was). Currently a majority of such funds are eaten up by the
politicians and bureaucrats. So perhaps that will get reduced. As a state,
India is currently a failure: perhaps the UID will help make some ammends.

The implementation is going to be a challenge - currently there are options
that are doing rounds: a smart card approach or using a mobile sim card (a
govt reserved security domain in every sim card - the sim ID can act as a
proxy for UID).

~~~
kailashbadu
Actually he has long stepped down as a CEO of Infosys. He, however, continued
to wield the title of co-chairman until now.

~~~
eghanvat
He has resigned now.

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tungstenfurnace
ID cards are a bad idea everywhere. Loss of privacy; loss of the presumption
of innocence. Being required to produce the card by aggressive cops.
Corruption and collusion between fat cats and government.

The cards will be hacked and sold on the black market almost immediately upon
being released (if that ever happens -- it probably won't even after billions
of rupees have been spent). Hence they'd make ID fraud and terrorism easier,
not harder.

The article mentions 20 different forms of ID which are currently recognised.
This sounds better to me. Historians, for example, prefer several pieces of
evidence which can be cross-referenced to support a story rather than just one
piece.

Just as it's not a good idea to allow private companies to collect data on
people without their explicit consent, so it's a bad idea to let the
government do so. Actually, it's an important check on government power not to
let this happen. And I think many politicans involved in such schemes realise
that ID projects won't reach completion. They either think it's a neat and
simple idea, or in the worst cases they're out to build empires and make
profit for their 'friends'.

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tokenadult
The article includes a good discussion of the governmental issues involved in
implementing this plan in India. I'd love to see links to articles about this
from the Indian press.

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raghus
Opinion piece in the Times of India:
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/SA-
Aiy...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/SA-
Aiyar/Swaminomics/Netas-and-babus-can-outsmart-smart-
cards/articleshow/4739109.cms)

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known
Instead of wasting(<http://tr.im/pX87>) 10,000 crores tax payers money on this
UID project they could have issued PASSPORTS to all Indians at a nominal fee
of 10 rupees.

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seshagiric
No the allotment is only 100 crore in the first year.

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seshagiric
For a project of this scale the India Govt. has allocated just above 20
million $ (100 Crore in India). Not sure what to say.

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brc
1.2 Billion cards? They better not use a smallint as a primary key then

