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India's Billion User Biometric Odyssey
mask.of.sanity writes "A bold new biometric identity system is being deployed across India in a bid to combat rampant welfare fraud. The mammoth system will collect the iris and fingerprint records on a voluntary basis of every one of India's 1.2 billion men, women and children. The Aadhaar project runs three trillion biometric identity matches every day — all on a small data center of commodity blade servers."
Why is this news? This project started 4 years ago and is full of bugs and half ass procedures.
This was rolled out 2 years ago.
The intended use:
When a unique ID is issued, you can optionally associate a bank account with it. Govt. will transfer welfare benefits directly to that account, "avoiding" corruption. Many are miffed by this as they stand to lose control over, benefit distribution and there by votes.
System abuse scenario is plenty, as your iris scan, finger prints(all 10) are associated with the ID.
Funnily, the ID states that this is only for identification, and not a document of citizenship.
The basic problem TFA starts with, is too much bureaucracy, too many different systems. Many people carry four redundant forms of identification. And now, they carry five, at least for the next few years.
Worse, once this system is fully implemented and the other four are finally phased out... there's only one, with the useful property that if someone still manages to impersonate you (and they well might, there's a lot riding on the ability so they'll work something out) you've become a threat to the system and are best just kicked out. No replacement passport for you. You've become expendable.
Don't think they won't. This is a country where family members might, and occasionally do, bribe the local clerk to have you declared dead of natural causes, so they can take over your land and other belongings. Biometrics can't solve that, it can't make corruption go away, but it certainly can make problems all of its own.
And it does. Just starting with the huge databases it needs to work. We all know how the most enlightened and freedoms and liberties celebrating government of the world proved to actually treat my and your data. Now try again with a less well-paid, bigger, more corrupt government.
It's not that these people don't have good intentions. It's that they're making all the classic mistakes, from making the humans puppets of the machine, to believing they won't be corrupt, honest, to massive overreach and starry-eyed wishful thinking. With biometrics sauce to make it all the more hip and in and cool and inescapable and unfixable.
Biometrics, just say no. Also, save us from government IT.
In reality, Aadhar project is illegal, unconstitutional and not the best way.
Mostly these cards and identity were used to convert illegal immigrants into legal ones.
It was also used to create vote bank and a huge corruption for distributing these projects.
If you really see the system, entire process of biometric capturing was totally wrong and in several cases, it was mapped to wrong people, several people could not give their finger print (especially old people).
This system is guaranteed to fail. As I understand it, the problem it is meant to address is welfare fraud - criminals collecting the welfare of the poor for themselves.
Best case, this works for a year or two as the criminals figure out how to spoof the biometrics. Maybe local gangsters force the poor people to give up their biometrics - take their prints and photos of their irises and then use copies (ala the recent iphone hack and the similar spoof via a photograph of the original iris). If the scanners at the welfare locations are manned, they just need to bribe the guy manning them into letting them use the spoofs. Undoubtedly the guy manning the system is going to be some low-paid peon anyway.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
... collect the iris and fingerprint records on a voluntary basis of every one of India's 1.2 billion men, women and children.
It's voluntary yet records every one of 1.2B people? Either India is the most sheep-like country ever (unlikely), or this system isn't really voluntary. Is this like voluntary income tax in USA?
The project would be a bold deployment for Australia, but for the second-most populous country in the world ...
Australia, whaaa? F- this article!
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
...nice! how technology pace invents new commodities ;-)
They are able to scan 1M people in one day(!), so it takes over 3 years to scan all 1200M people.
One scan takes about 5 megabytes, so 1200M scans takes 6000 terabytes:
http://searchbusinessintelligence.techtarget.in/feature/Aadhaar-project-data-collection-An-interview-with-Mindtrees-CEO
Architecture details:
http://www.biometrics.org/bc2012/presentations/UIDAI/UID%20BSP%20update%20Kris%20ver%202%201040.pdf
Yeah, that's going to happen. 1.2 billion people. Every one of them will voluntarily hand over their fingerprints and eyeprints.
Methinks either "voluntary" or "every one" is being grossly misrepresented here.
Time for me to go to my voluntary re-education classes sponsored by the Ministry of Love.
fifth sigma, inc.
This is SERIOUSLY being discussed as just an IT issue, without any of the MASSIVE social and political issues involved?
I'll pass.
That's some first-rate volunteering, that is.
If you are saying Biometric systems are not foolproof from a security perspective I agree. But if you extrapolate that to "biometric data used in Aadhar will make the scheme fail" - then you have no clue whatsoever about the existing system and how Aadhar uses biometric data.
AADHAR replaces the existing archaic mostly pen and paper 19th century PDS models - Public Distribution Systems - usually through 'Ration Cards' - to deploy benefits.
There will be some amount of fraud in any system which is used widespread. People lose their identity in the West. Social Security Numbers or Social Insurance numbers are misplaced or stolen or identity hijacked. But for all practical purposes they work as intended Your social security card is only a piece of green paper with your name and number...the number is your username. And you do not need a password.
The Aadhar number is only a username. The photo of the person, the address together with biometric data are added. It is for identification, not to swipe and open a door!
For the AADHAR system in India, the intentions and purposes of using biometric data is not security, but identification. And identification works on different levels, biometrics is only one of them. There is no village / town / city in India where you present a photo ID and a machine scans it and gives you benefits - there is a person behind the counter. Thats the first step. There are other checks and balances.
Still, local rowdies might abuse the system. Some corrupt officials might misuse their powers and try to pocket the proceeds. But this is a change which the country needed.
(As a side note: Most states in India give 25 kilos of rice to a family of four for Rs 1 a kilo - something like 0.016 cents a kilo - to anyone belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) card holders. Some of the rice returns to the market when the BPL card holders sell the extra to local shops or hotels. No system can stop this nonsense!)
Tat Tvam Asi
1.2 billion fingerprint in a government-controlled database. In India, for crying out fucking loud. What could possibly go fucking wrong ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Not sure you can voluntarily collect ALL without "making an offer he can't refuse"
This project is life changing for a billion people. By the end of the decade and into the next decade its effect on Indian society and the economy will become clearly visible. Such projects have great challanges to overcome and there will be some cases of fraud but it will be on a substantially smaller scale than currently happens.
of course, devolving into a police state with government tracking every minute detail of the citizens lives to have absolute control over them is not a possible outcome
400 million are enrolled with 25 million enrolled last month alone. The program is radically changing the distribution of benefits to many people who were promised them but never saw the access. Many people discuss the ability to fake the biometrics and while there are chances of this occurring it is a fairly complex process and by changing the systems so they are only transferring cash direct to accounts controlled by the individual rather then relying on someone else to be an intermediary creates a lot of freedom to the individual! Being a part of UID was an incredible experience that along with touching so many people truly effected my life as well.
There are several projects in India that are changing the way we interact with the government.
Omg, one billion? It is not real.