Talk about mixed emotions. On the blog we take a very "Don't mess with India" attitude but on the other hand Aadhaar is, frankly, creepy.
From naked capitalism, September 29:
The report calls into question key aspects of India’s digital ID program, including its heavily centralised nature, the reliability of its biometric identification systems and its vulnerability to data breaches.
Relations between India and the so-called “Five Eye” nations (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) are in a bit of a rough patch. According to an article in The Hindu, India’s second most circulated English-language newspaper, India’s relations with Canada are now at their lowest point since the 1980s, after Justin Trudeau raised “credible” allegations last week that Indian agents were involved in the murder of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a Sikh plumber-cum-separatist leader shot dead by masked gunmen on the outskirts of Vancouver in June.
Delhi, of course, has denied any involvement while saying it will cooperate with any investigation. Nonetheless, the ensuing diplomatic crisis has so far led to visa suspensions and reciprocal expulsions of senior diplomats. The Trudeau government already paused negotiations on a Canada-India free trade agreement more than two weeks before going public with its allegations.
And it is not just Canada that is casting aspersions on India’s possible role in the crime. According to the US envoy in Ottawa, David Cohen, Trudeau’s allegations, first aired in Canada’s parliament last week and then reiterated at the UN General Assembly last weekend, were based on “shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners”:
“There was a lot of communication between Canada and the United States about this… We have been consulting throughout very closely with our Canadian colleagues — and not just consulting, coordinating with them — on this issue. And from our perspective, it is critical that the Canadian investigation proceed, and it would be important that India work with the Canadians on this investigation. We want to see accountability, and it’s important that the investigation run its course and lead to that result.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has echoed these sentiments, confirming that the US is “coordinating” with Canada and is seeking “accountability,” while stressing that “it’s important that the investigation run its course.” Interestingly, Blinken did not mention the spiralling US-Canada dispute in the readout following his meeting in Washington yesterday with India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, but that does not mean it was not discussed.
Aadhaar Under Attack
Now, a report by Moody’s Investor Services on some of the challenges facing digital identity programs around the world is raising hackles in the subcontinent. The main cause of the anger is a three-paragraph section that calls into question key aspects of India’s digital ID program, known as Aadhaar, including its heavily centralised nature, the reliability of the biometric identification systems it uses and its vulnerability to data breaches:
Aadhaar, the world’s largest digital ID program, assigns unique numbers to over 1.2 billion Indian residents using biometric and demographic data. This system enables access to public and private services, with verification via fingerprint or iris scans, and alternatives like One-Time Passcodes. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) administers Aadhaar, aiming to integrate marginalized groups and expand welfare benefits access.
However, the system faces some hurdles, including the burden of establishing authorization and concerns about biometric reliability. There have been cases of service denials, and there are risks to reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual laborers in hot, humid climates.
The real kicker comes in the third paragraph, which argues that decentralised identity [DID] programs such as the SSI [Self-Sovereign Identity] system rolled out by countries like Estonia — which is now working with the Zelensky government to pilot a national mobile application modeled on Ukraine’s Diia application — offer a far better approach to digital ID than India’s heavily centralised system....
MUCH MORE, India's government is taking the Moody's action to be a threat and is reacting.
One of the commenters frames the issues:
The Rev Kev
Previously:
May 2020
Bill Gates Would Like To Export India's Aadhaar Biometric Identity System To the Rest of The World
This is a couple years old (May 3, 2018) but I wanted it on the blog for future reference.October 2022
From India's News 18 (CNN International/Network18 j.v.):
Bill Gates Dismisses 'Aadhaar' Privacy Threats; Funds World Bank to Bring it to Other Countries
Reserve Bank of India: "Concept Note on Central Bank Digital Currency"
This seems to be part of a move to unpick the BRICS and India is a natural target. They also had a go at one of the new members of BRICS – the United Arab Emirate – but that seems to have fizzled out. So Trudeau’s attack was a shot across the bows and Blinken bringing up this assassination with India is to let them know that Trudeau’s attack was done with Washington’s backing. I suppose that you can say that the US is telling India that either ‘they are with us or against us.’ India was been all over the place between aligning with the west and aligning with the BRICS as Modi is as erratic as Erdogan. Truth be told, aligning with the west would be extremely dangerous for India because in the long term they would be pushed into a fight with China as a proxy. But India has seen how well that is working out for the Ukraine and the wealth that they would have to give up abandoning the BRICS would never be made up for by what the west has to for India – unless it is in weapons.