I dont know how many of us have heard of WikiLeaks. It is wikipedia’s latest offering and contains leaks of confidential documents from around the world. Time magazine says that this could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act in the USA.The newspapers in the Country have reported it here and here.
Apart from various documents on the Afghan war and the role of the ISI in Pakistan, two documents in the India section caught my eye. Both relate to the formation and role of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and leak certain documents that apparently haven’t been able to be obtained even through several RTI Applications.
Though most newspapers have reported on the Unique ID Project chaired by Mr. Nandan Nilekani, hardly any information is given on how the project would be implemented. On wikileaks, a confidential document titled “Creating a Unique ID Number for every citizen of India” tells us in detail as to how the Authority plans to implement this project and the information that would be collected from a citizen.
On crucial aspect that I’d like to point out is the use of biometrics. The Government plans to make a database of biometric information that includes finger prints, eye scans and DNA (not yet confirmed this as some news reports highlight it). This, in effect means that tomorrow is there is a crime, then all the police has to do is to match the finger prints and DNA samples with the data bank. Issues arise out of this, the most serious being that of self- incrimination. While Provision of DNA samples and finger prints are held no violative of Article 20(3), the law is very clear that they wouldn’t be so only if the conditions in Section 53 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 are followed. The Cr. PC states that only is there are reasonable grounds for believing that a person committed a crime, will an examination of his medical evidence be taken.The biometric collection of the UIDAI project then defeats the rights given to the accused under the Code of Criminal Procedure and this must be further looked into.
The second document tells us about the constitution of the Cabinet Committee for the UIDAI project.I am not aware as to why this document was not available earlier as is marked as ‘Confidential’ by the Government.
Nevertheless, Wikileaks is a good site to browse by when you are bored and want to obtain such confidential information. Kudos to those whistle blowers who are uploading such documents.
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[...] earlier post on the UID here. More by writing by Usha Ramanathan on the UID and its privacy concerns here, here and [...]
By way of correction, Wikileaks is not associated with Wikipedia in any manner. It uses the system that relies upon community contribution and collaborative content, which we now know simply as Wiki.
For an expansive comment on Swarup’s note, see Usha Ramanathan in the Hindu and IE on the Unique Identification program
The personal is the personal http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-personal-is-the-personal/563920/0
Implications of registering, tracking, profiling http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/05/stories/2010040554240800.htm