Aadhaar, India's biometric identification system is not working for its rural communities
India’s Rural Development Ministry announced that more than 11 million bank accounts held by disadvantaged people have yet to be linked to the world's largest identification system. A Supreme Court ruling made it clear that private businesses cannot demand the unique code to offer their goods and services. Some observers worry about privacy issues and India’s ties to Myanmar’s military junta, concerned that a similar system might be set up in that country.
Milan (AsiaNews) – India’s Rural Development Ministry this week told the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, that more 11 million bank account holders in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have yet to be given their Aadhaar card, which has a 12-digit unique identity number with a holder’s biometric data, the largest of its kind in the world.
Permanent residents of India get the card, while their fingerprints and iris scans are stored in a centralised database along with other personal data (name, date of birth, address, and more).
Under the MGNREGS, at least one member of every rural household is guaranteed 100 days of wage employment in a fiscal year.
On 1 February of this year, the Union government stopped making direct payments into beneficiaries’ bank accounts, switching instead to the Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS). The deadline for workers to use it to receive wages was extended to 31 August.
However, “The ABPS is a complex, cumbersome and unreliable system that has caused severe problems in the last few years,” said a workers’ collective focused on social welfare issues. “There is no case for making it compulsory.”
In Hindi, Aadhaar means base or foundation. The system is supposedly voluntary. Data are collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), but over time, to access services or goods, even as simple as buying s SIM card, has become increasingly complicated without an Aadhaar number, to the point that the Supreme Court of India had to intervene.
In a 2018 decision, the Court ruled that private businesses cannot ask customers to provide their Aadhaar details to obtain their services. At the same time, it acknowledged that the system does not violate Indians’ right to privacy, noting that it reduces the marginalisation of rural residents, which outweighs privacy considerations. It also explained that an Aadhaar card is not a proof of citizenship or grants the right to a domicile.
The idea behind the project, launched in 2009, was to centralise the national identification system and facilitate access to state benefits, which were previously based on the possession of a birth certificate and ration cards. Since then, the biometric identification system has instead penalised the poorest sections of the Indian population.
In 2017, after the introduction of new fingerprint reading machines, the indigenous tribes of the State of Jharkhand – especially seniors and the disabled with finger problems – had problems accessing government food rations and subsidies due to constant system errors.
As a result, many households were left without food rations for up to six months. Several children were denied enrolment in school because they did not have birth certificates and could not therefore be entered into the system.
Some observers pointed out that any data leak could be disastrous and the system could be used to boost surveillance systems.
The Wire, an Indian news website, pointed out that late last month U Myint Kyaing, Myanmar’s Minister of Immigration and Population, visited Delhi and Bengaluru (Bangalore) to learn about the Aadhaar.
The minister is under US and European Union sanctions, which India does not recognise, due to his government’s human rights violations following a military coup two years ago that sparked a brutal civil war between the country’s military and anti-coup resistance groups.
During his visit, officials responsible for the Aadhaar system briefed the minister about how it works.
Identity is a particularly tricky issue in multiethnic Myanmar where ethnic and religious affiliation of each citizen is included in the national identity card.
This is particularly thorny for mostly Muslim Rohingya who have been persecuted for years by the military and treated as stateless by successive Myanmar governments.
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