Indian Census To Collect Fingerprints, Photos

adityamalik writes "The Indian census kicks off on Thursday, with approximately 2.5 million people charged with conducting it across the billion-plus strong country. 'Officials will collect fingerprints and photograph every resident for the first time for the register — a process described by Home Minister P. Chidambaram as 'the biggest exercise... since humankind came into existence.' Sensitivity towards collection of biometrics and personal details is quite low in India currently. I wonder how effective — and how powerful — the exercise will turn out to be for the country. I'm also struggling to imagine how the photo and fingerprint collection is going to happen, technology-wise."

Comments

Quoi.

[bbqsrc]

How does collecting genetic data assist in statistically analysing population trends?

Re:Quoi.

[masshuu]

it doesn't. This is most likely another project thats piggybacked onto the census, as you take out 2 birds with 1 stone as the phrase goes.

or this is a failure of an April fools joke

Re:Quoi.

[Anonymous Coward]

what genetic data is to be collected? a fingerprint??

Re:Quoi.

[Sparx139]

Fingerprints and photos =/= Genetic Data
Although to answer your question, not much. Although, if illiteracy is as bad as it suggests in TFA, then the purpose is probably to overcome this to some degree - if people can't write their name, then recording their fingerprint and their photo will reduce errors. There's a few reasons listed in TFA:

But Ashish Bose, a retired professor of Indian and Asian population studies at Delhi University, warned of mistakes creeping in despite the best efforts. "Uneducated people in villages never know their ages correctly. It is never a '51' it always 50 or 55. But overall we conduct a good census -- no doubt about it and the vast majority of people are keen to participate," he said. S. Parasuraman, a demography professor at the Tata Institute of the Social Sciences in Mumbai, said the new population registry will provide a valuable database. "In a disaster for instance, one will be able to pinpoint how many people were living at a place before and after the catastrophe struck. It will be a compilation of useful information enabling proper governance," he said. Data collected for the National Population Register will in turn facilitate the issue of the 16-digit Unique Identity Numbers to all Indian residents. This will serve as a one-stop proof for all Indians to establish their identity, eliminating the current need to produce multiple personal documents.

Now, putting aside the inherent "creepiness" of fingerprint scanning, it makes sense. It's the Indian poverty version of a driver's license as an ID.

Re:Quoi.

[AHuxley]

Depends on your population trends and ruling elites greatest fears.
From a criminal underclass susceptible to outside messages, an ever expanding number of farmers with no land, no work and no compensation.
With fingerprints and fast FBI like data processing many crimes will point back to an id on file and a photo.
The problem with the ID dream is the "freedom fighters" will have "one way" mission ready perfect ID.
Everybody else has to sit as expensive ID is produced, printed and used everyday.
The real fun is then the figure print scan expansion.
To access new expensive and later daily government services would a fast, user friendly finger 'scan' be introduced?
Protest too much and your ID has errors, stop protesting and it works again?
Take your case to a human rights worker - your ID stops for much longer and the state has an ID on the humans right worker.
The state can turn or dispose of trouble makers and work on long term solutions to local problems.

Re:Quoi.

[T Murphy]

FTA:

a simultaneous process of collecting biometric data on every person, to be used in a new National Population Register

Data collected for the National Population Register will in turn facilitate the issue of the 16-digit Unique Identity Numbers to all Indian residents.

Sounds like they don't have an equivalent of social security numbers- the biometric data will help make it easier to figure out who is who in this process. Given the population, in addition to literacy issues, using an easy method is more practical than trying to minimize police-state like data collection. If you can't expect everyone to keep track of their own ID number, you need another way to peg the person to the number later. As much as I don't like the idea of fingerprinting everyone, if it's the only way to efficiently get the government to better provide services for these people, I see it as a necessary 'evil'.

Re:Quoi.

[bhagwad]

What you say is scary, but it won't happen in India for a simple reason:

The Indian government is (luckily) incompetent and indisciplined. For tyranny to succeed, discipline is necessary which the Indian government doesn't have. An incompetent government is a gift to the people. Better than having competent fanatics. Undisciplined people can't do great irreversible damage!

Re:Quoi.

[BrokenHalo]

what genetic data is to be collected? a fingerprint??

The article does not mention any kind of genetic data collection at all.

Re:Quoi.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Well the process of collection makes it far more likely that the average person will remain in awe, fear and subservience to the state.

Re:Quoi.

[MichaelSmith]

An incompetent government is a gift to the people.

I think India is an example of it going a bit too far. India is in desperate need of Chinese style population control. Right now the region is a sitting duck for famine. I wouldn't want to see a billion people starve to death.

Re:Quoi.

[timmarhy]

the problem is, nothing like your paranoid dreams has ever come true. technology doesn't instantly mean a corrupt all powerful government, in fact the real world is just the oppersite. no one uses id cards to control people, they use guns, land mines and machettes.

Re:Quoi.

[AHuxley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaswant_Singh_Khalra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZTCFxBY6Tw

Re:Quoi.

[Mindcontrolled]

Where I live, we do have a national ID for decades and biometric passports are being phased in at the moment. Despite all the "Papiere bitte!" paranoia, in the last couple of years, the only people I had to actually show my ID were not evil gubbermint thugs controlling me on every street corner, but rather private security services making sure that I was who I claimed to be when I entered sensitive areas like R&D departments of some of my clients. Hell, I don't even need to show my passport when I leave the country. Total gubbermint control looks different to me.

Re:Quoi.

[Darkness404]

The problem isn't for the ordinary citizen during peacetime, but rather when the government decides to go to "war" against their private citizens. From the 1990s onwards, the west has been pretty peaceful. But imagine if we get another wave of Cold War era paranoia? Do you -really- want the government tracking everything you do when that happens? National ID cards aren't terrible during peace where nothing is happening, but a few laws passed on the side can allow the government to easily profile a person as an "enemy"

Imagine this scenario. Your country goes to war with say, Japan for no apparent reason. Everything about Japan is frowned upon, those of Japanese decent are rounded up (similar to what happened in the US), and the government requires IDs to be checked when purchasing goods to "make sure you aren't a spy". Well, all that happens and the government is logging data, profiling you. It sees that you bought a book about the culture of Japan at the local bookstore, some sushi with a friend and a collection of Asian flags. From this information the government decides that -you- could possibly be a spy for Japan trying to overthrow your government so you either have A) your reputation ruined or B) go to a secret prison and are never seen again.

Such things seem unrealistic, but similar things have happened in the past even with no national ID and no standard way of checking people. When hysteria grips the masses, people who say they support freedom change their tone.

Re:Quoi.

[timmarhy]

it's easy to paint anything in a bad light when you make up imaginary scenario's and play the "what if" card to it's nth degree. eg.

what if i didn't get my national id card and someone tries to shoot me, and the bullet could have been stopped by the card? think of all the people what could be saved by bullet proof national id cards!!!

making up implusible things that might happen isn't a strong defense.

Re:Quoi.

[tirefire]

If you can't expect everyone to keep track of their own ID number, you need another way to peg the person to the number later. As much as I don't like the idea of fingerprinting everyone, if it's the only way to efficiently get the government to better provide services for these people, I see it as a necessary 'evil'.

You've got a point here; illiteracy makes recalling and processing written numbers difficult. A biometric system will be great for the illiterate.

However, I see no need for the literate to use this system. They should have the option of just getting a number. After all, the biometric data is likely stored and processed by computers, meaning it is expressed as a number. Maybe I'm exhibiting severe computer stupidity, but it seems like one computer system could keep track of both biometric and plain old "Social Security" numbers.

Re:Quoi.

[timmarhy]

hard to imagine how it sustains a bilion people already.i guess a lot of them are living worse then my dog does (which wouldn't be hard i guess, my dog sleeps in the bed and gets premium raw pet food, he even has a health plan)

Re:Quoi.

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, I'm Indian.

They aren't going to do anything useful - paperwork will still be the way they ("our" government) does things. To be honest, most ppl working in government desk jobs are stupider than your average office-going person. It will take at least 5 years for anything useful to come of it.

I sure as shit hope they're using a 64 bit doubleword, longword, long long, quad, quadword or int64 for the 16-digit UIN/UID, with a unique key in their database. Knowing Indian govt., that's an easy thing for them to muck up.

I wonder if ppl can start buying UIDs :-) And how much it costs to get an extra one (fake) :-)

People in India do not understand the implications of anything privacy related other than locking the door and possibly checking your computer for viruses/virii.

Anyways, I probably won't get one since I'm not a resident.

captcha word: "robbed" - how ironic.

Re:Quoi.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's better off than 30 million US citizens then.

Re:Quoi.

[nospam007]

If you can't read, don't know where or when you were born and chose your own name, usually you don't know what a 'state' _is_.

Re:Quoi.

[thrawn_aj]

Undisciplined people can't do great irreversible damage!

That's what I thought about the US. Hell, 8 years of incompetence and the country strong as ever (back in 2008) - I figured that's a great stress test for the economy. And then it just collapsed. Yes, a national economy largely runs on autopilot, but the reason for it is the tremendous inertia it has a result of its sheer size. What one must remember is that a very large object, while stable in motion, is equally difficult to divert when it's rushing headlong off a cliff. I guess while the undisciplined people themselves probably can't do much damage (I don't think I would blame Dubya personally for most of the things that are wrong with the economy today), they serve as a catalyst for the real opportunists to do the damage. In his case, he tended to collect people based on loyalty rather than ability - hardly a good choice for running something as complex as a country. I think that was his only real crime (everything else was politics as usual) and that incompetence did do a lot of irreversible damage.

To get back to India, while a 1984-style fiasco is not possible (for the reason you mentioned), it has led to unscrupulous bastards (usually criminals) taking over local governance in many of the major cities. The local and state governments are strong as compared to the central, but they are hives of corruption because they are largely isolated from the greater political scene. At this moment in its history, corporations are probably the only constructive force left in India.

Re:Quoi.

[lul_wat]

We could tattoo numbers and barcodes on them instead. I hear IBM has just the software for the task.

Re:Quoi.

[Gandalf_the_Beardy]

But what was just described wasnt at all implausible. In the early 1930's the Jews of Germany were happy to complete the cencus that had a box marked for religion. in 1933 some Austrian managed to get himself installed as Chancellor. Within five years we had had Kristellnacht and then those same census forms were used to start rounding up and ghettoising the Jewish, and other "undesirable" populations. Go back to 1999 and the new milennium - would anyone in the West have imagined that within 2 years we would be figthing a pair of major bush wars in 2 other countries, and be missing a couple of skyscrapers just 2 years later on? If I'd had some official document floating about that marked me as "Muslim" accessible to a lot of people I'd be worried for myself as well even though I had done nothing wrong.

Re:Quoi.

[jackal40]

People always say this is unlikely or unrealistic until it happens. As one posted already, we had an Austrian Corporal use Germany's census data to round up the Jews and the United States government did the same to the Japanese Americans during World War 2 - using census data.

If you're OK with providing all the information government asks for during the census, fine. I am not, not because of some tin foil hat conspiracy theory - just from a sense of history. It will probably amount to nothing, but I don't buy the explanations of why they need that info.

Fortunately, in the United States, we are not (yet) at the point of the government collecting photos and fingerprints. I don't expect that will last too much longer - probably be required as part of health care.

Re:Quoi.

[Compaqt]

Governments are basically are in a race to be the most privacy-invading, rights-ignoring country across the world.

Meanwhile the US Census is sending out the American Community Survey, which wants to know:
-if you run a business from your house
-how much you earn from various activities
-how you spend your money
-number of toilets
-what time you leave for work, how long it takes, and how many travel with you (wonderful to know for stalkers)
-and other weird and invasive questions

Re:Quoi.

[Stargoat]

Nonsense. In the US, the poor people are fat. If they cannot afford health or otherwise, it is because they made choices in life.

Re:Quoi.

[jittles]

I'm guessing another reason they're doing this is to limit fraud. It will be much harder for people to steal social services benefits if the finger prints don't match with someone who qualifies.

Re:Quoi.

[Compaqt]

Made-up scenario?

The Census has already admitting to giving information on Japanese-Americans for the purpose of their internment at concentration camps during WWII.

After denying it for decades, they finally admitted giving names and addresses of Japanese-Americans to the military.

Generally, if the government tells you X, the truth is likely Not X.

Re:Quoi.

[Compaqt]

You can still watch the news on TV (or listen on the radio), so I think people know what state and city they are in.

Also, there are degrees of illiteracy. If you had to, I'm sure you could start writing your name (or ID number) in Arabic or Chinese even if you couldn't read a newspaper in those languages.

The biometric stuff is just a pure power grab. Do bureaucrats have international conventions where they discuss how to be more and more Evilll?

Re:Quoi.

[khallow]

People always say this is unlikely or unrealistic until it happens.

Bingo. In a healthy society, you don't get this sort of mass hysteria. Those "people" are correct under those circumstances. When a society declines from good health, such as has been happening in the US for the past ten years, that's when you have to worry.

Fortunately, in the United States, we are not (yet) at the point of the government collecting photos and fingerprints. I don't expect that will last too much longer - probably be required as part of health care.

Another wonderful outcome of Obamacare.

Re:Quoi.

[Nadaka]

Bullshit.

Poor in America are fat mostly because the cheapest and most accessible foods have high calories and low nutrients (somewhat exacerbated by low levels of physical activity).

I am not even going to bother refuting your ridiculous assertion about healthcare, my rage at your ignorance and arrogance isn't good for my blood pressure.

Re:Quoi.

[misexistentialist]

How about they focus on improving literacy instead of accepting the status quo and "efficiently" tracking the population like cattle? The government is less interested in delivering services than in control, and any potential benefits will be overshadowed by certain evil.

Re:Quoi.

[DavidTC]

Ah, yes, that imaginary Obamacare where the government has massive amounts of interaction with citizens.

Meanwhile, in what just passed, everyone has to buy health insurance from private companies, so it's really hard to see at what point the government would be requiring any form of ID.(1)

The only place the government is going to be interacting with anyone is paying taxes and distributing subsidies to cover health insurance...and the government has always required biometeric identification to pay taxes and receive tax rebates...oh, wait, no it hasn't.

In fact, it doesn't require any identification, which is actually somewhat odd when you think about it. The only thing stopping you from mailing in someone else's taxes and thus getting someone else's tax rebate is a simple employee address verification and that private banks won't cash the check.

I'm sure they'll start requiring ID just for your paranoid fantasies, though.

1) Ironically, the right tried to keep people here illegally from buying into the public option, and if they had done that, you actually would have to show ID to get that insurance Sadly, the public option was killed.

Re:Quoi.

[plague3106]

The OP's scenario is not implausible at all. Look up the red scare. or even nazi gemany. Before they could enslave and later murder the jews, they had to know who was jewish.

Why does everyone think that bad stuff can't happen here? Its silly, the whole reason we have a bill of rights and (supposedly) limited government is because bad things WERE happening here.

You want to give total control of your life over to someone you don't even know, and then your only recourse is to simply trust that you won't be abused? How stupid are you?

Re:Quoi.

[stonewallred]

same thing goes for idiot mods who mark it troll. You disagreeing because of your liberal white guilt and inability to say what you think does not make my comments trollish. Too bad you lack the balls to speak the truth in public, instead of quietly amongst your friends, after carefully checking to make sure you don't "offend" anyone nearby. Everyone hates a coward, even cowards scared to speak their minds.

Re:Quoi.

[TZA14a]

Well, you might enjoy IBM and the Holocaust, then. Read it and scale to today's information technology and kill capability.

Re:Quoi.

[shrtcircuit]

Hm. Every government-issued ID I have has my photo on it. Kids get printed in school and have for decades, which means current adults *have* been printed before (I have no idea where that information ended up - do you?). Babies even have to send in blood samples for genetic tests, which most states destroy but not all.

While not an official photo/print program at a national level, I'm quite certain I'm in a number of gov't databases at that level.

Re:Quoi.

[khallow]

Ah, yes, that oh too real Obamacare where the government has massive amounts of interference with citizens.

FIFY. Also, this "imaginary" Obamacare already has the IRS involved, merely to see if you have health insurance or not. The US government, much less the IRS, shouldn't know whether you have health insurance or not. Instead, the current "reform" extends the level of interference of the federal government in the health data of its citizens.

In fact, it doesn't require any identification

...for paying taxes. The federal government doesn't care who pays your taxes. Private businesses typically operate the same way. I once paid my landlord's phone bills for a few times. I didn't have to show proof of ID. Because why do they need to get an ID? They know where you work. They know where you keep your money. That's pretty much all the IRS cares about.

Now, let's suppose you want to get something from government. Then you need to show ID and fill out the proper paperwork.

One of the many problems with this health care law is that you have to demonstrate that you have insurance. How do you think that's going to happen?

Besides this is a segue into a single payer system. A genuine slippery slope in my view simply because the current fixes are so badly thought out that it won't stay stable. Insurance companies are going to have to increase cost. People are going to have to drop out (and pay that wonderful 2.5% regressive fee/tax) for various reasons (can't afford it, preexisting conditions, etc). With single payer comes the need for identification.

Re:Quoi.

[superdave80]

Which is why I left the 'race' part of my census form blank for me and my family. The census is only to determine representation, and they have to represent me regardless of our race.

I also left the birth date sections blank, as I can't possibly imagine any reason to have that bit of personal info floating around.

Re:Quoi.

[BJ_Covert_Action]

A) your reputation ruined or B) go to a secret prison and are never seen again.

Or, C) Your name gets put on a list of, 'people to watch out for,' and, unless you do something tremendously shifty, like, say, purchase lots of ammunition or explosives, you simply get tracked a little more meticulously than most.

The type of profiling you are talking about already happens to some degree today. Based on web searches, utility bills, credit card purchases, and so on and so on. The thing that saves us all is the fact that there are a lot of people to track. Thus, if you do something that flags you as suspicious, its just that, a flag. You get flagged, possibly put on some list somewhere, and you get monitored to see if your habits repeat themselves. In your example, you would be checked on from time to time (without you knowing it) to see if you continue eating sushi and purchasing Japanese books. If that's they case, you mostly just get shrugged off as a wannabe Japanese guy that's probably not a threat.

If, however, you start vacationing regularly to high-profile political targets like the White House, and the Congressional building, and the Pentagon, and so on, and you start Google searching, "How to make homemade explosives," every night, AND you start sending encrypted data packets to a very particular IP address that is known to be linked, through a proxy network, to government servers in Japan, well, then you are probably going to get an unpleasant knock on the door.

Mind you, I am not defending profiling. I am just pointing out a bit of hyperbole in your original assertion. You see, it takes a lot of resources, personnel, and money to round people up, arrest them, detain them, and so forth. Even the NSA, FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and the Illuminati (TM) are not going to go through the effort unless you do something VERY suspect.

Now, you did mention that in times of war, these things change. That's probably a valid enough concern and, you are probably right, the number of flags you would have to raise to be detained would probably be lowered significantly. However, I still do not think any government agency would go through the effort of ruining your life or detaining you indefinitely unless you did something very rash, or you really pissed off some powerful people.

Your thoughts, of course, may vary.

Re:Quoi.

[blackgod]

Sorry, I don't have good news for you. Govt. is slowly moving towards outsourcing of essential tasks to proven private companies, which can't be done by pretty old Govt. officials. Unique Citizen ID project is one such which is lead by the Ex-CEO of Infosys, the No. 1 IT company.

Re:Quoi.

[Stargoat]

Don't be a moron. This is the first society in history where everyone has enough.

If a person does not have health care today, it is because they have made a choice not to. They may have made the choice in high school not to study, or they may have decided that insurance is not something they need.

You see in the United States, survival is a privilege, not a right. This is a land where a person will be left alone by the government and they can make what they will of their life. This is a land of freedom, not a land of security. If you want security, go back to Europe.

Re:Quoi.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Stargate_Moron

Yes, I heard about that freedom, where they tap phone lines and persecute you if you have socialist leanings ... wonder which USA you live in ? maybe you just forgot to read US history in school or they don't discuss those. Last time I heard, the US was the country with the largest number of people in prison (yeah about 0.75% of US is in its prisons).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

You think they call the people "free" when they live in a prison !? I have lived in the US for 5 years and visited most of the major cities, what I found was that the US knows how to hide poverty well.

Get a life ... after you get some knowledge ! OK ?

Re:Quoi.

[ncc74656]

Kids get printed in school and have for decades

Since when, and where? Not in any of the six school systems in five states and two foreign countries I attended in the '70s and '80s.

SMILE!

[xQuarkDS9x]

SMILE!!! You're on candid camera INDIA EDITION!

Pros...

[doishmere]

As long as reasonable attempts are made to keep this information secure and out of the hands of the police, this is a case where the privacy concerns are far outweighed by the benefits. India has the world's second largest population; think about how difficult it must be form them to keep track of even simple census data. The U.S. has a population one fourth the size of India, and still has trouble taking taking a census only once every 10 years. This will allow India to better allocate aid to impoverished regions, or even just track what percentage of children actually attend school.

Re:Pros...

[bhagwad]

Privacy concerns cannot be "outweighed" because:

1. Privacy is a legal right guaranteed by the Indian Constitution
2. The courts have repeatedly shown that they will uphold privacy
3. People fought and died for freedoms - not development. Losing privacy is one step towards losing freedoms that we have earned

You may not treasure your privacy and that's your right. But don't tell me that I mustn't care for it in the name of "Development." A person like you will probably applaud the Chinese government for development at the cost of privacy.

Re:Pros...

[BrokenHalo]

Wow. I haven't read the Indian Constitution, but that sounds pretty impressive. Certainly sounds like something the so-called "free world" would do well to emulate. Yeah, I know, fat chance.

Re:Pros...

[doishmere]

There's a difference between a right to privacy and the right for you to keep you existence unknown from the government. I agree that privacy is terribly important, but you can't deal with absolutes; yes, people have died for freedom, but that does not mean we must reject anything that encroaches upon it the slightest. The government isn't collecting this information to spy on its citizens, its doing so to provide services to them and properly run the government. You claim the Indian courts will protect privacy; if this is truly the case, then it is likely that anyone misusing this data would be prosecuted.

Re:Pros...

[Anonymous Coward]

How? How do fingerprints help track what percentage of children go to school? Is I understand it, fingerprints help track _which_ kids go to school. The statistics could be calculated from any old census (and school) data.

I'm sure the "how to allocate aid to impoverished regions with fingerprints" explanation will be even more interesting, right?

Re:Pros...

[doishmere]

The statistics could be calculated from any old census (and school) data.

Well, that's just it -- this is an improvement on the collection method. I'm not suggesting schools have fingerprint readers at schools, I'm merely stating that this method will likely produce more accurate census data, which could then be used for any of the reasons mentioned.

Re:Pros...

[ScriptedReplay]

There's a difference between a right to privacy and the right for you to keep you existence unknown from the government.

So you're unknown to the government if they don't have your prints now? I guess before this breakthrough invention a census was a meaningless exercise. And IDs and passports a joke. And paper trail for taxes, properties and so on just something to kindle fire. Oh, how silly of so many other countries.

I agree that privacy is terribly important, but you can't deal with absolutes

Yeah, whoever heard of things that you either have or don't. Also, you're a little pregnant, you know?

The government isn't collecting this information to spy on its citizens, its doing so to provide services to them and properly run the government.

Right. Of course. And whoever does not fully trust that bunch of selfish bureaucrats is a traitor. Or a terrorist. Or something. Mussolini would be proud of you, son.

Re:Pros...

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you posting about? Mods, check the parent! From the link YOU posted:

The Indian Constitution does not expressly have a clause guaranteeing privacy.

Re:Pros...

[crazyvas]

BS. It's not guaranteed by the Constitution. It was a decision made by the Supreme court. HUGE difference.

Re:Pros...

[junglee_iitk]

The government isn't collecting this information to spy on its citizens

Until it starts doing it. Your trust in government is overwhelming. Have you ever been to India?

Re:Pros...

[Rogerborg]

Can you explain the difference, in terms of privacy concerns, between an image of your fingerprints and an image of your face?

Please use short words, because I'm clearly neither as smart nor as angry as you.

Re:Pros...

[bhagwad]

A decision that interpreted the constitution and brought privacy within the ambit of "The right to life"

Re:Pros...

[Suhas]

The government isn't collecting this information to spy on its citizens

The government isn't collecting this information to spy on its citizens, yet.
There, fixed that for you.

Re:Pros...

[ScriptedReplay]

Mate, your opinions on yourself are your own business and those on myself are lighter than a feather, so please consider not wasting page space next time. As they say, stones and sticks may break my bones and all that jazz.

Now as to your question. A picture of your face is in the majority of cases not a definitive means of identification - especially the limited type in photo IDs. Maybe you've heard of people looking alike. Perhaps that's one reason why some places (like banks) would ask you for 2 photo IDs for identification? OTOH a fingerprint is supposed to be a unique means of identifying a person. Try proving your innocence in court if the prosecution has only a picture of someone looking like you, versus them having found your fingerprint at the scene.

Re:Pros...

[Threni]

> Can you explain the difference, in terms of privacy concerns, between an image of your fingerprints and an image of your face?

You could have networks of cameras which can read faces, and then look up that person's identity and flag them immediately to the authorities. You can go fishing for people, and you'd get some false hits, which would be inconvenient if you look like a terrorist.

Fingerprints should uniquely identify you, but can't be used as above.

Re:Pros...

[poptones]

Are you talking about the US or India? If you're talking about the US, this would easily fall under that whole 4th ammendment thing: I have the right to protection from unreasonable searches and/or confinement. Taking my fingerprints when I have done nothing and without my consent is a violation of my person no different than walking into my house uninvited and without warrant.

Re:Pros...

[mrops]

you probably haven't seen indian police stations.

In rural ares they are a building with the most hi-tech equipment being a half dented radio used for comunication and dispatch. some will have a telephone.

In more modern areas they may have a 386 with win95 running on it, and very unlikely any kind of networking. so i wouldn't worry about police using the data for a few decades to come. CBI (think Indian FBI) on the other hand may be in a better position to make use of this data.

Re:Pros...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have enough fingerprint scanners, ergo they'll go the cheap route: cut-off everyone's hands.

Re:Pros...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.truthinjustice.org/fingerprint-myth.htm

Too bad people *believe* it is unique identifier. DNA markers are closer to unique, but again, they are not. Especially since only a few markers are used for matching.

Re:Pros...

[Rogerborg]

Chummy, old buddy, dear heart, I most humbly apologise for not realising that your words are more worthy than mine. I don't wish to "waste more page space", but I feel that it's best that we're clear on which of us has the better claim to squandering this precious resource.

Well, I agree with you that fingerprints are a better means of identification. But since passports - which you seemed implicitly to approve of, by discounting their significance - already require an image of your face, not your fingers, that leaves me very confused as to what your point is. If your a point is comprehensible to such as I, I mean. It would seem to someone of my limited understanding that collecting fingerprints would offer more protection to the Ordinary Decent Indian than photographs, which as you so wisely point out, are a poor means of identification.

I'm clearly missing something here. Perhaps you could use shorter words next time, fastest of fast friends?

Re:Pros...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but please educate yourself on the difference between what the constitution says and what a supreme court interpretation is. The former needs a huge majority in both houses of the legislative body to change. The latter could change at the whim of the Supreme court, and is also subject to finer interpretation any time. If you don't understand elementary political science, there's not much I can do to make you see what a huge difference this is.

Re:Pros...

[dcollins]

"As long as reasonable attempts are made to keep this information secure and out of the hands of the police..."

When the hell has that ever been done?

Re:Pros...

[Lord Apathy]

Screw the right to privacy. That really is small taters compared to what could happen with this data. It's not about what the goberment will do with the data it collects, it is more about what could be done with it.

Say the goberment swoops in and collects your name, address, favorite sexual position, and religion. They keep it in a nice fat file and really don't do anything with it. Then a few years later a meglomaniact comes to power and uses that data to round up all the jews and cart them off to concentration camps.

It's not about what will be done with the data right now but what could be done with it later.

Re:Pros...

[raddan]

Yes, but 'citizenship' is not private information. It is essential, for a government of any kind, to know whether you are a member or not, in order to function. So the issue here is whether biometric information is a heavy-handed way of determining membership.

Given the difficulties with such a large population, widespead illiteracy, and issues with identity fraud (which the West still struggles with), I'm not sure how else you would do it. I'm inclined to say that a photo and a fingerprint are not private information.

Genetic information, on the other hand, reveals quite a bit more about a person, and I think you could make a reasonable case that collecting those kinds of information is overkill if your goal is identification. A fingerprint doesn't reveal much at all, except whether it matches your finger or not. Which is the whole point.

Re:Pros...

[BJ_Covert_Action]

People fought and died for freedoms - not development.

Really? I am pretty sure that almost every case of imperialism since the dawn of history could be classified as people fighting and dying for development. They just weren't fighting for the development of those who were fighting them. =P

Not that I am disagreeing with your post in general. I agree that privacy is something to be valued and protected. However, I am not sure point 3 holds water in your list.

Then again, you may be referring to India, specifically, when talking about point 3. If that's the case, I don't know if you guys have ever fought or died for development in your own history. If that's the case, just file this post under, "snarky misunderstanding."

Re:Pros...

[bhagwad]

But my dear chap, you fail to understand that in the current context, we're talking about privacy in India viz a viz the rest of the world (and specifically the US).

Even the US doesn't have an explicit right to privacy. It's only "implied" by the constitution, and in this respect, seems to be on the same footing as India.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate and even advisable to look at the entire thread of discussion before inserting a comment that, not to put too fine a point on it, exposes a certain crude, aggressive mentality that is significantly out of sync with accepted standards of mature discussion on the Internet, notwithstanding the somewhat flippant and perhaps not entirely cohesive nature of the average comments on the present forum.

Re:Pros...

[Red Flayer]

Perhaps it would be more appropriate and even advisable to look at the entire thread of discussion before inserting a comment that, not to put too fine a point on it, exposes a certain crude, aggressive mentality that is significantly out of sync with accepted standards of mature discussion on the Internet

What internet do you use? It doesn't resemble the one I use.

Regardless of how I'd like it to be, general discussion on the internet is dominated by internet tough guys and inconsiderate assholes who, if they spoke in person as the write in forums, would have their asses handed to them on a plate.

National ID card

[Anonymous Coward]

They plan to use those prints in a National ID card .... i still wonder will my prints be safe?

Re:National ID card

[Anonymous Coward]

From?

Re:National ID card

[ergean]

From the government, silly!

Easy to solve

[93 Escort Wagon]

Am also struggling to imagine how the photo and fingerprint collection is going to happen, technology-wise.

Simple - don't tell them you're from the Indian census bureau. Tell them you're from Facebook.in, and they'll fight over who can give you their blood and other bodily fluids first.

Re:Easy to solve

[Anonymous Coward]

You want some of my bodily fluids? Be careful it's spicy

Re:Easy to solve

[Anonymous Coward]

our precious bodily fluids?

It's not as bad as Thailand...

[billsayswow]

I heard something about how, in Thailand, they're including blood samples in their census. Yup, the news was just talking about how the citizens are pretty much taking their blood right to the steps of the capitol...

April fools!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right? ...oh

Just thinking....

[Nikker]

I know this is tin foil talk and all but how hard would it be for other countries to take census forms and check them for finger prints?

Re:Just thinking....

[Mashiki]

Quite difficult. Many countries require that you be charged with criminal offence(read: high-level crime which jail is the end result) of some kind before your fingerprints be taken in any form, or recorded in any database for any purpose. In my small neck of the woods, fingerprinting for anything else is considered a violation of the law.

Even then, your fingerprints can be removed from the database if you're cleared of the charges.

Re:Just thinking....

[jonadab]

> take census forms and check them for finger prints?

How would you determine whose prints are on any given form?

In the first place, there's not a one-to-one relationship between people and forms, since most people live in a household with other people. If there were one form per person, that would lead to a much less accurate census, because more people would decide not to bother.

Even if somehow magically there were a form for every person, you still don't have any way to know whose fingerprints are on it. About a third of the population does not fill out ANY of their own paperwork, ever. They don't file their own taxes, fill out their own applications for government "assistance" (i.e., handouts), don't fill out their own census, ... don't do ANY of their own paperwork.

Young people get their mothers to do all that stuff for them (yes, even if their mothers live in a different town). Old people get their kids to do it, or their neighbors, or that nice lady at the library, or anyone else they think they can talk into it. Disabled people get their aides to do it all for them. Some people feel they're too busy for such menial things and just pay somebody to do all their paperwork. Others are afraid to try because they don't know how because they've never done it before, so they whine and plead and beg until someone takes pity on them and just does it. Some people just take it for granted that you always get somebody to do that stuff for you, because that's what their parents always did. Some people can't read (about ten times as many people as will admit it). And of course some people are just lazy. There are a lot of reasons, but they all add up.

The long and short of it is, you can't assume that the fingerprints on the form belong to any of the people whose names are on the form. They very well might not.

Re:Just thinking....

[Nikker]

Just by taking the prints and the GPS location of the household if law enforcement found a set that matched Jon Q Public's fingerprints then they would narrow it down to a very select number of people, maybe 10 or so(the parents, kids, their lawyer, etc). Now out of 300 million you've narrowed it down to just a few. Over the course of multiple interactions you start to fill in some blank spaces. If you take into consideration all other forms of correspondence you would fill in these gaps much quicker.

Like I said this is all tin foil talk but your argument that not having positive ID for each print would make them useless is not the case.

As an Indian citizen

[Kream]

Makes sense to point out here 2 crucial differences between the US and India.
In India, there's no Right to Privacy as strongly guaranteed under the US Constitution. Secondly, there is a strongly articulated bundle of rights called the "Right to Life". This includes the right to food, education, access to free / subsidised health services etc. In India, there are massive government programmes for the provision of basic services (food, shelter, education, irrigation, water, electricity, transport etc) to citizens.

In this context, the people, rather than being wary of the state and treating it like an enemy as is the case in the US actually want the state to help them. If you were to provide an Indian farmer with irrigation, access to primary healthcare facilities, water, sanitation, education and drought/flood relief, most would gladly fork over their private details.

Of course, modern states are brutal and the information collected will no doubt be used to casually repress people and tighten the state's hold on them. However, the integrity of your DNA fingerprint is of little consequence if you've committed suicide because of mounting debts.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Kream]

One point to note here is that unlike the US, democracy works in India in the sense that there is a true multi-party system and a plethora of actual contenders from power, from the far left (Communist Party of India - Marxist) to the far right (Shiv Sena) (Army of Shiva) and the people have demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to consign parties to oblivion permanently if they don't serve public interests.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[bhagwad]

Already posted this here once, but looks like you didn't read the earlier comments.

The Indian constitution does guarantee privacy and the courts have always upheld this principle.

In fact from what I understand, the US has less privacy controls in their constitution than India does.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[benjamindees]

I think you're missing the most crucial difference, which is that the US is not actually a state.

Regardless, the right to privacy is not really "strongly" guaranteed by the US constitution. In fact it is not specifically mentioned at all. It is protected along with all other un-enumerated rights by the 9th amendment. The right to pee standing up is equally as protected.

The rights protected by the US constitution are only negative rights. Positive rights such as food and shelter and education are not included, mostly because as I mentioned the US is not a state but also because positive rights are dumb and tend to require contradictions, conflict, corruption, classification and slavery and whatnot.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

In India, there's no Right to Privacy as strongly guaranteed under the US Constitution.

Nonsense again. The US Constitution says NOTHING about a right to privacy, let alone a "strong guarantee." Educate yourself first. Just fucking google it. Takes 2 seconds. http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#privacy

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Kream]

Bhagwad, you're wrong. I am in fact a lawyer and while Kharak Singh did mention the right to privacy in 1963, that right has scarcely been upheld or even enforced subsequently. Particularly in this day and age where, for example, ALL people renting houses in metros and ALL domestic servants in metros have to register themselves, their lease deeds and particulars with the state, the right to privacy as it is understood in the US is nonexistent here. Your links to your own blog notwithstanding.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Kream]

Well, there's no right to privacy explicitly defined but the 4th amendment and court decisions have, read together, promoted the right of individual citizens to keep their data private from the state. secondly, there exist robust laws limiting data access and retention, which dont exist in india at all. I erred in saying explicitly that the right to privacy was guaranteed under the us constitution, but my meaning, that it is strongly upheld in the US still stands.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[bhagwad]

It has been upheld. As recently as 2009, the Delhi HC used privacy as a reason for the decriminalization of homosexuality.

To quote from the Delhi High Court:
"In the Indian Constitution, the right to live with dignity and the right of privacy both are recognised as dimensions of Article 21"

To quote again:
"It is not within the constitutional competence of the State to invade the privacy of citizens lives or regulate conduct to which the citizen alone is concerned"

How much stronger does this need to be stated before it's recognized that Indian courts protect privacy within the legal framework?

Recently the Supreme Court said that pre marital sex was no one else's business. The foundation for that is is a strong ideal of privacy.

Also, lease agreements do not need to be registered if it's less than a year. Can you tell me in exactly which way the US looks at privacy differently?

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a fundamental problem, the vast majority is illiterate and _it's a democracy_ that spells screwed right there. Plus "vote according to their interests" is construed as who gave them a higher reservation for college admissions or government jobs as opposed to any real long term benefit.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[westlake]

In India, there's no Right to Privacy as strongly guaranteed under the US Constitution.

There is no such explicit right to privacy in the American Constitution:

The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." The meaning of the Ninth Amendment is elusive, but some persons (including Justice Goldberg in his Griswold concurrence) have interpreted the Ninth Amendment as justification for broadly reading the Bill of Rights to protect privacy in ways not specifically provided in the first eight amendments.

The question of whether the Constitution protects privacy in ways not expressly provided in the Bill of Rights is controversial. Many originalists, including most famously Judge Robert Bork in his ill-fated Supreme Court confirmation hearings, have argued that no such general right of privacy exists. The Supreme Court, however, beginning as early as 1923 and continuing through its recent decisions, has broadly read the "liberty" guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee a fairly broad right of privacy that has come to encompass decisions about child rearing, procreation, marriage, and termination of medical treatment. Polls show most Americans support this broader reading of the Constitution. The Right of Privacy

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a fundamental problem, the vast majority is illiterate

Actually about 2/3 of the population is literate.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[nedlohs]

The US and Indian consitutions are basically the same with respect to privacy. Neither mention it, neither declare it as a right. Both declare other rights which the "right to privacy" has been derived from by their courts.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a fundamental problem, the vast majority is illiterate

Actually about 2/3 of the population is literate.

There's such a thing as functional illiteracy. If you believe statements by Bal Thackeray without being able to evaluate them critically, then you are illiterate - same as the uuh-merkins who believe statements by Fox News anchormen or Sarah Palin.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

Am an Indian too and you are wrong on two counts.
1. "right to life" in the Indian constitution is not one of the six fundamental rights.
2. The US constitution has no explicit right to privacy guarantee. In fact, SCOTUS has never ruled on a case that clearly shows the existence of any such provision in the US constitution.

Chidambram - I hope this is an April fool's joke coz you are not getting my fingerprint. Raised in India, I know how corrupt the police and government are.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[religious freak]

Yes. India is also a parliamentary system. Parliamentary systems lend themselves to true multi-party arrangements like this. Alternatively, you'll only *very* rarely see a party member go against party leadership on any issue in particular. So, it's a bit different than the way we do things in the USA. In my view, there tends to be less true negotiation among an assembly (i.e. legislature) in these systems. The members follow the lead of their party heads and that's about it.

Both systems have their virtues and vices.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[Chris Rhodes]

Lease agreements need to be registered? Those are private agreeements in the US, becoming a matter of public record only when there is a dispute. It isn't even customary to notarize them, which is also a private matter, except in the case of a dispute.

Perhaps the difference in the U.S. is that you don't have to register almost any personal documents or agreements, beyond those of birth, death, passport, license to drive and sell, and tax matters. And we argue about those.

At least in the U.S. Also, you can't fire or refuse to hire someone because they're homosexual, even if they are open about it.

And premarital sex, please, it is not illegal for a minor of age 20 to have sex with a 17 year old in Colorado, USA, regardless of the marital status of either partner. I don't know about India. Premarital sex in the form of pedophilia and prostitution is illegal in most of the U.S. though.

There. I've made a bunch of casual statements about privacy in the U.S. Someone else can logically tie them to your statements, as per their differences.

Because I lost track.

Re:As an Indian citizen

[seekertom]

it's not my place to tell you how to live your life as an Indian. rather, please consider my opinion.... you said there is a 'package' provided by your govt for the citizens. this surely sounds like the govt is 'buying' the citizens' freedom from them with a few, albeit life-necessary, 'trinkets'. it is relatively obvious when stated as you did. but rest assured, it's the same procedure as being used on us in US and elsewhere.... 1) create (or allow to occur) a problem. 2) 'force' a solution upon the citizens. 3) remove a few (more) freedoms, or add a few (more) restrictions to the citizens as re-payment/thankyew-to-the-govt-for-saving-us. we are all in deep doodoo. anyhow, the fallicy of this plan shows up when you try to imagine a typical scenario of how this system might work... in the first place, censuses i think are for equitable and efficient distribution of services. finger prints won't help there. or, some official needs to contact an individual.... to verify the person in front of him, what's he going to do, re-finger print the person and then somehow compare it with some bulging database on-line? maybe carry with him a photo of all the folks in India? maybe he's carrying a laptop with him and will use face-recognition software for an identy match? there's much i don't know, so forgive me, but overall, such things as this makes me very very concerned for us all. thanks fer lis'nin' seekertom

Re:As an Indian citizen

[mahadiga]

770 million ppl survive on Rs 20 per day in India. You can buy their votes for $350 million & rule India for 5 years.

Chinese Census?

[Hadlock]

Uhh I recall watching a video in middle school (a 15 years ago??) about the 1990 Chinese Census of 2 billion people, with an error rate of less than 1%. I would say it is roughly twice as large as India's "the biggest exercise... since humankind came into existence". Maybe Indians are... ahem, larger than the Chinese in some respects?

Re:Chinese Census?

[Hadlock]

Perhaps they are measuring some biometrics they aren't letting on about?

Re:Chinese Census?

[Yuuki Dasu]

Uhh I recall watching a video in middle school (a 15 years ago??) about the 1990 Chinese Census of 2 billion people

That's quite a feat, given that the 2000 Chinese Census put the population of China at only 1,242,612,226, not much over half that.

Some census.

Re:Chinese Census?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly longer, but just as thin. Maybe even thinner.

Re:Chinese Census?

[geekoid]

and nothing is more accurate then a middle school video~

That aside, India has more people now then chine did in 1990.

China did not have 2 billion in 1990.

Only take 50 days

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how many boots will be on the ground collecting census data, but if it's 2.5 million, (and assuming they each conservatively collect data from 8 citizens a day) it would take only about 50 days to collect it from a billion of them.

Re:Only take 50 days

[FatLittleMonkey]

Maybe they'll outsource it?

OT: Please save your opinion for the comments

[noidentity]

When making a submission, please summarize the facts, and if you have opinions about it, reply in a comment as we common folks do. Your opinion isn't above ours. Thank you.

Re:OT: Please save your opinion for the comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Your opinion isn't above ours. Thank you.

Yes it is; that's what you're complaining about.

Re:OT: Please save your opinion for the comments

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here...

Re:OT: Please save your opinion for the comments

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I have often lauded slashdot's completely impartial and unopinionated submissions.

-- Bill Gates

Re:OT: Please save your opinion for the comments

[noidentity]

Your opinion isn't above ours. Thank you.

Yes it is; that's what you're complaining about.

Yeah, well, your reply is below my first one.

Depends on who they outsource it to...

[BenJCarter]

:D

Why doubt everything that comes from India?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is there always a question mark on non-Indians about their ability to achieve something? I see lots of uncertainty expressed about India and Indians in forums.
I know people the electronic voting machine miserably failed in the US, for instance. Still they have not got it right. In India, they have been using electronic voting system for a long time now. I know the kind of spending they do in the US to achieve anything. In India, they spend 100 times lesser to achieve the same thing. The US does not know efficiency! It's all extravagant. The quality revolution in the US, which started after Japan's, is itself a testimonial to their being historically inefficient. I have nothing against anyone, jsut do not always doubt others.

You may be a human being, an animal that can be as intelligent as possible. But, frogs and rodents are more intelligent when it comes to predicting earthquakes.

Re:Why doubt everything that comes from India?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doubt everything that comes from India?

Indian technical people?

I mean, sure, there are some good ones and it's really not a place of origin thing at all, but there seems to be a lot of mediocre Indian technical people around at the moment, and it makes everyone sensitive to all of India's flaws.

It's possibly something do with the quality of education, cultural attitude and social background of recent immigrants, but damn: 'is it?' is not an intelligent thing to say.

Re:Why doubt everything that comes from India?

[seven of five]

The quality revolution in the US, which started after Japan's, is itself a testimonial to their being historically inefficient.

W Edwards Deming was an American who helped kick-start Japan's post-WWII production quality & efficiency. They had they advantage of starting from scratch. Many if not all american co's eventually got the message, too.

Re:Why doubt everything that comes from India?

[Danny Rathjens]

In many minds, the images of extreme poverty, disease, malnutrition, illiteracy, beggars, religious violence, honor killings etc overshadow things such as having nuclear weapons and a space program and decent economic growth the past decade. So they still think of India as a third world country.

Re:Why doubt everything that comes from India?

[Danny Rathjens]

uhm, Mr. Troll moderator. I was directly answering his question as to why it seems many people treat India that way. I didn't say I felt that way or intend to provoke anyone. If you disagree as to my reasoning then why not reply and give a better answer to his question?

Sounds good.

[Cantus]

Sounds like a good idea to use the Census to register people. Most civilized countries have a civil registry which includes a photo and fingerprints.

Paper?? Why?

[c0le]

The twin census and population register processes will stretch over 11 months, consume 11.63 million tonnes of paper and cost 60 billion rupees (1.25 billion dollars)

Why not use electronic means? Shyte. My name is going to be spelt wrong, AGAIN. :(

Why?

[fantomas]

What is it about the "process of collection" that "makes it far more likely that the average person will remain in awe, fear and subservience to the state"? Are people in India generally in awe/fear/subservience of the state? My impression when I visited on two occcasions is that many people are happy to question their political leaders and are happy to exert their political rights in many cases.

My experience of India though is limited so if you can provide examples and references I'd be happy to be educated.

Also, what do you mean by "the average person" in India? thanks.

Caste system

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder what the implications are for a country that creates under- and over-privilege through a genetically-driven caste system.

There are probably a lot of people who would prefer to remain anonymous lest someone discover they are not of as high a status as they pretend to be.

Re:Caste system

[buzzzz]

Actually, due to the huge amount of affirmative action, upper cast people often try to be identified as lower cast. In India 50% of all university seats, government jobs, and other opportunities are reserved from people identified to be from the under-privileged castes. The lower castes are also one of the strongest political blocks with huge electoral powers. If anything the lower caste people want it to be easier to prove they are in fact lower class so they can get all the benefits there in. The social stigma exists, but is not dependent on or impacted by the government. Its going to remain till a few generations of Indians have lived and ancient truths on this matter have ceased to be the standard.

duh

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Am also struggling to imagine how the photo and fingerprint collection is going to happen, technology-wise.

Lots of these
Might be expensive, though.

But on a serious note, it should be interesting to see, after 1 billion fingerprints (about 1/6 of the world population) are gathered, whether the assumption that they're unique is still valid.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

We already know they're not - accuracy is very very low on a wide scale. On a small scale it still works.

Re:duh

[raddan]

Fingerprints are probably something like hash functions. There are collisions now and then, enough to make them useless as a global identity function, but very useful when you need to be able to say "this ID does not belong to you", because the likelihood of someone possessing stolen identification, and their fingerprint actually matching, is infinitesimal.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Am also struggling to imagine how the photo and fingerprint collection is going to happen, technology-wise.

Lots of these
Might be expensive, though.

But on a serious note, it should be interesting to see, after 1 billion fingerprints (about 1/6 of the world population) are gathered, whether the assumption that they're unique is still valid.

Haha, however I generally get the feeling they will use these or something similar. After the US Gov uses them extensively already.

This should be easy

[dup_account]

"Am also struggling to imagine how the photo and fingerprint collection is going to happen, technology-wise."

Come on, this is India, the country we trust all our IT development work to. If a country has the abilities, it should be India.

Argh.

[RealErmine]

Wonder how effective — and how powerful — the exercise will turn out to be for the country. Am also struggling to imagine how the photo and fingerprint collection is going to happen, technology-wise.

Am also struggling to form complete sentences.

HOw will it happen ?

[nurb432]

Some states have their BMV pictures in a database now, whats a bit of extra data ( the fingerprint )? Storing is easy, its mining the data that is hard. ( and these days, not all that hard )

Silver Lining?

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be a Silver Lining to this. Depending on how its used, with such a large dataset it may give us an idea of how inaccurate/accurate fingerprint identification is. Law enforcement, the keepers of the largest biometric databases, have always been very tighliped about false positives using their own databases. If for example the fingerprint database is used for a first line identification* with no secondaries** you could start to get an idea of the false positive rate based on the number of complaints of incorrect identifications in any one office (preferably a larger office for a better dataset) They might even let scientists into an anomized version of the DB to run cross comparisons, like they were trying to do with the FBI DNA database before they were shut out for "security" reasons (buwahahahahahaaa) even in the face of court orders.

*walk into office where you have an apointment, place finger on pad, sit down and wait your turn
**ID Numbers, Names, ect

Re:Silver Lining?

[westlake]

There may be a Silver Lining to this. Depending on how its used, with such a large dataset it may give us an idea of how inaccurate/accurate fingerprint identification is.

Fingerprints are evidence.

The pieces have to fit together.

Not perfectly, but well enough to be persuasive.

When there is a murder is in Roanoke, the killer is mostly likely to be found close by in Virginia. He won't be the 54 year old engineer overseeing a public works project in Iraq or the eighty-seven year old priest in a Dallas hospice.

I read that as

[geekoid]

Indiana the first time.

And

[mahadiga]

Census without Caste is oxymoron in India.

Reasonable attempts?

[jotaeleemeese]

So if they fail to keep the information secure, but they did their bes, it is all right, lets give those people a pat in the back and shrug off the identity theft that ensues.

In the US there was already somebody tampering with anti terrorism lists (the US authorities would not say in which way but it is not difficult to imagine many scenarios).

Reasonable attempts is not good enough. The only way to be sure this data is not abused is not to collect the data at all in the first place ( the government can and must collect aggregate data, that is whet they need to govern, only authoritarian regimes need your picture and fingerprints for no good reason).

Should I care?

[fly1ngtux]

Well, I am an Indian and I don't care.

Why?
I work for a Korean MNC and they have this mandatory requirement that I should have a medical check-up before joining the company. This has to be repeated every year and the report goes to the company (HR). If I can allow a Korean company to have control over my bio samples, and allow senseless HR (from my own country) to peep into all those information, what is the harm in giving the photos and fingerprint to my government.

Question:
How many of you use biometric authentication in your offices and really trust all those software installed on the system and the sys admins who deal with your bio-ids?