Serious concerns were raised regarding the UID/Aadhaar project and other digital platforms undermining citizen’s rights, in a workshop organised at the Sambhaavnaa Institute. Their particular concern was that the UID/Aadhaar is destroying people’s right to obtain justice, equality, liberty, and dignity.
The workshop, titled ‘Digital Colonisation: Examining how digitization is undermining our economy, democracy and sovereignty’ was organised during February 24-26, 2017 to discuss the impact of the national digital ID system in India (UID / Aadhaar) and the push towards digital banking through demonetisation. 30 participants comprising of policy researchers, lawyers, technologists, activists, and journalists from across the country attended the workshop.
At a time when the UID/Aadhaar database is being touted as the biggest biometric database in the world, while it has not been verified or audited after private agencies collected the data, and enrollment agencies have not been restricted from retaining and reusing the data, the workshop highlighted critical failures that are emerging due to linking of this database with various government welfare and service schemes, such as MGNREGA, EPFO, LPG, and PDS, as well as with bank accounts.
“The coercive use of Aadhaar-based authentication for delivery of public services is leading to widespread misery and excluding lakhs of people from getting basic services like rations and pensions” said Nikhil Dey, an eminent social activist who was part of the Right to Information Campaign. He added that “there are several Supreme Court interim orders stating that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for provision of basic services and this has been rampantly violated by many state governments”.
Recently, the FIRs filed by UIDAI against several of its longtime financial technology partners further illustrate the high risk created by using eKYC service provided by UIDAI for any acts of identification and authentication, such as opening of bank accounts and making Aadhaar-based digital payments.
The workshop participants also critiqued the systematic destruction of autonomy of the apex financial institution of the nation – the Reserve Bank of India – through dilution of KYC standards, introduction and scaling up of eKYC provided by UIDAI, use of UID as a financial address, and forced digitalisation of the banking and payments sector through the demonetisation move, announced on the 8th of November 2016. They expressed concern that instead of promoting debit cards and NEFT, that were RBI payment systems, private payment systems that are not auditable, enable anonymous money transfers, money laundering and result in digital black money were being encouraged.
“The main concern of citizens’ rights organisations is that there is neither any policy document nor any safeguard that ensures that the fundamental rights of the citizens are not harmed in the process of, and after the achievement of, this shift to digital,” said Dr. Usha Ramanathan, a legal researcher and activist.
The demonetisation exercise, just like the Aadhaar enrollment process, marks a new culture of governance in India: that is premised on closed and opaque decision-making, outsourcing and privatisation of government functions to private agencies, creating market space for and promotion of private services (such as UPI and BHIM, both owned by NPCI, which is a non-government company)
Dr. Anupam Saraph, Professor and eminent expert in governance and complex systems, sees this as a destruction of swaraj, or self-rule. He proposes that “the only way to reclaim swaraj would be by restoring the autonomy of the public institutions, like the RBI, and quitting the use of colonial instruments like UID/Aadhaar for controlling the citizen’s access to rights and entitlements.”
“We are in the process of initiating a campaign called ‘Rethink Aadhar’ and we intend to spread awareness about the problems with UID across the country”, said one of the participants of the workshop.
“Now more than ever, we as citiznes need to educate ourselves on the impacts of mass digitisation in India” said Mohammad Chappalwala of Sambhaavnaa Institute.
Sambhaavnaa Institute, nestled in a small village called Kandwari, in the lap of the Dhauladhar mountains, is an educational centre for those concerned with social and political change. Founded under aegis of the Kumud Bhushan Education Society, Sambhaavnaa has organised close to 80 workshops, meetings and trainings for youth and social activists since 2011-12, on a series of social and public interest issues.