The enthusiastic endorsement of illegal UIDAI and its inexplicable eagerness to merge electoral photo identity card -EPIC numbers and electoral database, with the Aadhaar biometric database that faces robust legal challenge, merits probe

“I have a file on you.”

- MK Narayanan’s routine threat to his adversaries as National Security Adviser (NSA) quoted in Sanjay Baru's book 'The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh'

“One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual’s various life events, such as joining school, immunizations, voting etc.”
 

- A confidential document of UIDAI titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’, leaked by Wikileaks on 13 Nov 2009
 

The proponents of world's biggest citizen identification scheme aims to converge electoral photo identity card (EPIC) numbers of electoral database, the UID/Aadhaar number database called Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) and the National Population Register (NPR). In their myopia, political parties in particular and citizens in general have failed to fathom its ramifications for voting by electors in a democracy. 
 

A bizarre situation is emerging where citizens chose a government that was supposed to represent them but their government is undertaking the task of biometrically authenticating whether or not those it represents are indeed those who they claim to be.   
 

In a letter dated 7 June 2011, the Director General and Mission Director of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) wrote to Chief Election Commissioner saying, “The Election Commission of India (ECI) may also like to leverage Aadhaar infrastructure in cleaning/ updating their existing electoral data base. Aadhaar numbers issued by the UIDAI can also be included in the list of valid proof of identity (POI) and proof of address (POA) documents of the Election Commission during the polls for identity verification.”
 

The file notings by ECI on the UIDAI’s letter reads: “How can Aadhaar number used as proof of address”. The reply from ECI dated 17 June 2011 on the letter from UIDAI sought following information before taking any further action:
 

• Whether UIDAI has the provision to update the address in the database, whenever there is a change in address, to use Aadhaar number as proof of address?

• Whether any process has been defined to use Aadhaar numbers on electoral roll database?

• Whether UIDAI can include EPIC numbers in Aadhaar database?

Responding to these question, in its letter dated 11 July 2011 UIDAI wrote, “Aadhaar has the provision to update the demographic or biometric information of the resident in CIDR from time to time to ensure that the CIDR data is up-to date and accurate all the time. The tool is currently under testing and should be widely available shortly.” The CIDR stands for Central Identities Data Repository of the Aadhaar numbers. Has the “tool” promised July 2011 available now? This reply is far from the truth.
 

It further wrote, Aadhaar numbers can be seeded into EPIC and electoral roll databases to clean those databases and also to bring standardisation and uniformity in the Election Commission’s databases across the country. UIDAI does provide necessary technical and financial support under its information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure scheme for integration of Aadhaar number with database of concerned Ministries/ Departments to make them UID compliant. However, the process and schemes to use Aadhaar numbers for their applications are to be defined by the concerned Departments themselves.” 
 

The notification of 28 January 2009 that set up UIDAI, provides the terms of reference (TOR) for its work. There is no reference to the collation of UID number database with electoral database in the TOR. But the TOR does refer to “collation and correlation with UID and its partner databases.” If this reference to ‘partner database’ included electoral database, the UID/ Aadhaar enrolment form never revealed it and took Indian residents for a ride.  
 

Notably, UIDAI was constituted in pursuance of the fourth meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by the then External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherji held on 4 November 2008. Shivraj Patil, the then union home minister and A Raja, the then minister for IT and Communications, HR Bhardwaj, the then law minister and Mani Shankar Aiyar, the then panchayati raj minister, were members of the EGoM wherein Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of Planning Commission was an invitee.

UIDAI argued, “Aadhaar database is restricted to the name, date of birth, gender, address, facial image, ten fingerprints and iris of the resident. The data fields are based on the recommendation of the Demographic and Data field Verification Committee headed by N Vittal, former chief vigilance commissioner (CVC). Since Aadhaar database contains absolute minimum information of a resident necessary to establish identity, it is not possible to include EPIC numbers in the Aadhaar database. However, the ECI should seed Aadhaar numbers in the electoral database as clarified above.”
 

Prior to this KM Chandrasekhar, cabinet secretary, Government of India (GoI) wrote a letter dated 25 April, 2011 addressed to VK Bhasin, secretary, legislative department stating, “Aadhaar can be treated as a valid Proof of Identity (PoI) and Proof of Address (PoA).”        
 

The Election Commission in its letter dated 4 March 2013 to UIDAI on the subject of “Seeding of Aadhaar number in Electoral Database” wrote that “Commission feels that it would be better that EPIC no. is collected at the time of enrollment for Aadhaar  and put in the Aadhaar database…ECI has already issued instructions that Aadhaar cards can be used as alternative identity documents at polling station…It may be mentioned here that Ministry of Home Affairs has also agreed to print EPIC no. on smart card as issued by Registrar General of India…Under the circumstances, it is once again requested that EPIC no. may be made mandatory for enrollment in Aadhaar.”  In its letter dated 29 October 2012, the ECI had argued that “including EPIC no. as mandatory field in UIDAI database would enable better integration between UIDAI database and electoral database, which will make Aadhaar numbers more useful.”
 

This enthusiastic endorsement of illegal UIDAI’s database and its inexplicable eagerness to merge EPIC no. and electoral database with a database that faces robust legal challenge merits probe.   
  

In a letter dated 16 April 2012, RK Singh, the then secretary, ministry of home affairs (MHA) wrote to Dr SY Quraishi, the then Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), with reference to latter’s letter dated 4 April 2012 “regarding inclusion of Electoral Photo Identity Card -EPIC number in the Aadhaar database.”
 

The secretary, MHA wrote, “The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India is in the process of creating the National Population Register (NPR) in the country. The NPR, when completed will be a register of all usual residents of the country, which would have the Aadhaar number besides the demographic and biometric data. The Government is also considering a proposal to issue Resident Identity (smart) Cards to all usual residents above the age of 18 years. The scheme is already making good progress and is likely to be completed in the next two years.”
 

The combination of the office of Census Commissioner and RGI creates a legal conflict of interest that is required to be examined because Census Act requires that data of residents of India has to be kept confidential. But RGI created under Citizenship Act admittedly puts the data in public domain. Besides this MHA has also feigned ignorance about the illegality of biometric data collection under NPR, a fact pointed out by BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. The then secretary of MHA is now fighting parliamentary election on BJP’s ticket.
 

At that time, the secretary, MHA also wrote, “As a part of the process of creating the NPR, the EPIC number is also being collected. This would enable mapping of the Aadhaar number to the EPIC number right from the beginning…Once the mapping is completed, there could be a lot of synergy between the EPIC and NPR databases.” 
 

He pointed out that “while the registration under the NPR is mandatory under the provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955, the production of EPIC Card during the NPR enrolment and capturing the EPIC number is being done on a voluntary basis from the residents. There are, therefore, gaps in the collection of the numbers. The gap can easily be bridged as the Authorities notified for the creation of the NPR are the same as those notified under the Electoral Law and if necessary instructions are issued by the Election Commission, they could easily ensure a complete coverage.”   
 

It is intriguing as to how Election Commission has failed to comprehend the adverse consequences of such convergence. There is nothing in public domain to suggest that implications of such merger have been examined.    
 

The then secretary, MHA informed the CEC that there is mutual agreement between the MHA’s RGI and ECI that “there is a considerable potential to synchronise the two databases and set up a unified platform for future updating of the same and sought CEC’s advice to take it forward. Does the Election Commission realize that synchronization of the two databases is happening as per the design of Wipro’s document and is beyond the mandate given to UIDAI and RGI?
 

It may recalled that one of the earliest documents that refer UIDAI is a 14-page long document titled ‘Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents’ prepared by Wipro Ltd for the Planning Commission envisaged the close linkage that the UIDAI’s Aadhaar would have with the electoral database. The use of electoral database mentioned in Wipro’s document remains on the agenda of the proponents of Aadhaar.
 

The reply of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) dated 1 April 2014 transferring the right to information (RTI) application to Election Commission seems to indicate that linkage of UIDAI with the Commission has already been established.
 

In such a backdrop, PMO’s reluctance to share all the file documents and correspondence relating to Nandan Nilekani and right up to his resignation appears quite sensitive and deserves scrutiny. The attempt to undertake convergence of all the sensitive databases of Indians and Nilekani’s confidence in the irreversibility of these efforts has thrown as yet an unmet open political challenge to the opposition parties.   
 

Is it irrelevant to observe that the letterhead of the UIDAI’s Director General reveals his personal email ID as [email protected]. The question is who authorized the UIDAI’s Director General to use Google’s email account? UIDAI does have its own email account. After relinquishing his post to join as chief secretary, government of Jharkhand, did Mr Sharma surrender his email ID to UIDAI? This email must be investigated to ascertain all the locations around the world from which it has been accessed.
 

The fact that one of the senior most official of UIDAI chose to receive such sensitive information on the server of Google, a private company, is a threat to national security and privacy of Indians. This company is regulated by US laws and has been working in collusion with foreign intelligence agencies. The authorities in the US, where Gmail is headquartered, can legally access the information on the server of Google without a court warrant and without any civil and criminal liability. The Indian government will remain in dark about it. In fact US’ Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) make the exchange of electronic information between Internet Service Providers and the government of US possible. The use of Gmail account demonstrates the lack of professionalism of UIDAI, which has been given the task of handling the database of the personal sensitive information of Indians. This act of omission and commission merits attention. Such gullibility of ministers and IAS officers in particular and officials in general is inexcusable.
 

In the absence of Parliamentary scrutiny institutional accountability for defections by intelligence officials like Major Rabinder Singh, a joint secretary in Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) who seem to have formally defected to US on 14 May 2004 with the help of the US Embassy in Kathmandu despite being under surveillance by R&AW’s Counter-Intelligence & Security Division (CI&S) for three months during the tenure of CD Sahay, who was the Head of R&AW, has not been fixed. The Manmohan Singh government that assumed office on 22 May 2004, dismissed Major Rabinder Singh from service under Article 311 (2) ( c ) of the Constitution of India on 5 June 2004. Indian intelligence agencies have consistently been poached by foreign intelligence agencies.
 

A former special secretary of the R&AW and author of “Escape to Nowhere: Story of an Espionage Agent”, Amar Bhushan says, “It’s the charter of every intelligence organisation to infiltrate and subvert other intelligence agencies.” It has now been revealed that Major Rabinder Singh could not be caught red handed because he had been transmitting the information and documents using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) meant for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over IPl networks through his laptops, which had imprints of 23,100 files. Thus, a database of 23, 100 files of R&AW has been transferred to US agencies without putting any remedial mechanism in place. Are our intelligence agencies really so naïve that they did not know that data can be transferred with VoIP? Can these agencies be trusted with the data of Indians?   
 

Hasn’t all the data collected by Census, UIDAI, RGI and ECI been transmitted to foreign countries through companies L1 Identity Solutions, Accenture and Mongo DB?
 

It has now come to light from Sanjay Baru's book 'The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh' that the Prime Minister declined “to take a daily briefing from chiefs of both the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) who were told to report to the National Security Advisor (NSA)”. MK Narayanan, as NSA, claimed that he had a file on his adversaries but he and his ilk does not seem to realize that National Security Agency of US and its Five Eyes Alliance have a file on them too. It appears that the Prime Minister accepted the fait accompli of all the Indians including him being subjected to surveillance by imperial powers with collaborators giving a field day.
 

In the 41 page long Wikileaked document titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’ that declared itself to be a ‘Confidential- property of UIDAI’ states, “The Unique ID or UID will be a numeric that is unique across all 1.2 billion residents in India. The UID number will not contain intelligence. In older identity systems, it was customary to load the ID number with information related to the date of birth, as well as the location of the person. However, this makes the number susceptible to fraud and theft, and migration of the resident quickly makes location details out of date. The UID will be a random number.”
 

While the Election Commission, cabinet secretary, home secretary and UIDAI have accepted UID/Aadhaar as “proof of address”, this Wikileaked document reveals that making it a proof of location was not part of its conceptual design. It is a puzzle as how agencies after agencies started accepting biometric Aadhaar as proof of address?
      

In fact each new born infant is a suspect. There is a file being created to track and profile him for good.
 

Like Indian NSA’s threat to his adversaries about having a file on them, having a UID/Aadhaar number automatically creates a file of the Indian residents in question. Even infants are not spared in this scheme of things. 
 

The confidential document reveals that from day one the Prime Minister wanted to create a file on each of “1.2 billion residents”, the division of work between MHA’s NPR and UIDAI was merely an attention diversion tactics to outwit political scrutiny. The merger of the electoral database with UID/number debunks UIDAI’s claim that UID number “will not contain intelligence” and “the location of the person.”
 

From these disclosures, it appears that PMO has adopted an adversarial role vis-à-vis Indians and acting beyond their legal mandate to pander to the interests of the commercial czars, non-state actors and foreign intelligence companies. 
 

Why is India’s officialdom and political class blind to subversion of national interest by unelected officials of PMO under the leadership of Nero like Prime Minister through bartering of citizen’s databases?
 

In a country where, no intelligence chief or official has held accountable for the assassination of two of its Prime Ministers and for betraying nation’s secrets, can it be hoped that all those who compromised India’s data security will made liable for their treacherous acts? 
 

Is it the case that the database scam is bigger than all the scams of Indian National Congress led Government? There is no reason for the PMO to deny information under RTI, which it admittedly is in possession of.
 

Post election, there is a compelling logic for setting up a High Powered Commission of Inquiry to probe the goings in the PMO and intelligence agencies that engineered and bulldozed the database project by compelling various government departments and States including Election Commission to comply with the dictates of illegal UIDAI.
 

You may also want to read…

Why biometric identification of citizens must be resisted? Part I
 

Biometric identification is modern day enslavement -Part II
 

Biometric profiling, including DNA, is dehumanising -Part III
 

Marketing and advertising blitzkrieg of biometric techies and supporters -Part IV
 

History of technologies reveals it is their owners who are true beneficiaries -Part V
 

UID's promise of service delivery to poor hides IT, biometrics industry profits –Part VI
 

Technologies and technology companies are beyond regulation? -Part VII
 

Surveillance through biometrics-based Aadhaar –Part VIII
 

Narendra Modi biometrically profiled. What about Congress leaders?-Part IX
 

Aadhaar: Why opposition ruled states are playing partner for biometric UID? -Part X

Is Nandan Nilekani acting as an agent of non-state actors? –Part XI

Aadhaar and UPA govt's obsession for private sector benefits–Part XII
 

CIA-funded MongoDB partners with UIDAI to handle Aadhaar data –Part XIII

Are Indians being used as guinea pigs of biometric technology companies? -Part XIV
 

Aadhaar: Is the biometric data of human body immortal and ageless? Part XV
 

Aadhaar: The propaganda of transnational vested interests –Part XVI

Aadhaar: Pakistan handed over, India giving database on a platter– Part XVII
 

Engineered row in US-India relations, an attention diversion tactics of big brothers?—Part XVIII

Aadhaar: UIDAI and the ‘fifth column’ of Napoleon—Part XIX
 

Aadhaar: Turning citizens into subjects through social control technology companies –PartXX

Why Kejriwal govt in Delhi should abandon biometric Aadhaar?—Part XXI

Aadhaar for LPG: Oil companies, Ministry of Petroleum & UIDAI disobeying Supreme Court order–Part XXII

Why Vasundhara Raje should immediately withdraw circulars making Aadhaar mandatory -Part XXIII

How Congress has been proven wrong on biometric Aadhaar and NPR -Part XXIV

Aadhaar, NPR, UN resolution and deafening silence of political parties –Part XXV
 

Is Congress converging UID numbers of EVMs and Indian voters? –Part XXVI

Is our political class trapped by economic hit men from database empires? -Part XXVII
 

Aadhaar & database risks: Will India evaporate to become nobody in our life time? –Part XXIX

How BJP’s Yashwant Sinha is wrong about ‘biometric’ National Population Register –Part XXX

Aadhaar: The lies of Nilekani and Congress over biometric profiling –Part XXXI

Why the PMO is hiding behind Election Commission on Nilekani’s resignation? -Part XXXII

(Gopal Krishna is member of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), which is campaigning against surveillance technologies since 2010)