Dear decision makers,
The first thought that came to my mind when I heard of new Aadhar Face Recognition feature was that, next time Jio might refuse me a SIM if my face recognition does not get validated! What was originally a scheme to ensure that social benefits reached the deserving has now become a number in Jail Roster or so people fear!
The infamous Government Babu's of India who so far were famous for quite a few wrong reason are now custodian of my personal identity data including bio-metrics and iris scan. A SIM card is a commodity like any other commodity and it is definitely not a government benefit for which we have to validate our bio-metrics. We pay for the SIM service and it is responsibility of telecom company to validate I am who I claim to be. So what is governments interest in offering private Telcos to use the bio-metrics validation which was originally meant for Social Security distribution? Mr Modi is friend with quite a few world leaders. Will he care to ask the heads of USA ,Australia, Israel,Germany, China or Japan if they take the responsibility of validating SIM users identify for the private telco companies? So why is India so keen to do the identify verification job for Jio ? And now the privilege is extended to every telco company! I can understand that government wants to prevent criminals from using SIM using fake identity documents but using bio-metrics and face recognition to buy a SIM card is stretching things too far. Next the grocer may refuse to sell sugar if I do not have Aadhar card , quite like a woman was refused medical treatment in a hospital and died few days back.
Did government ever wonder why do USA, UK, Singapore did not capture bio-metrics of their citizen for their UID program? Do these countries have more terrorism incidents or higher crime because they do not use bio-metrics like #Aadhar? How is Indian smarter than these countries who have Avoided Risking their Citizens Privacy and Identity by not Capturing their iris and bio-metrics scan?
Who is making these decisions about #Aadhar for the country? Is it the Indian PM? or the Home Minister? or Mr Nandan Nilekani? From when did India start implementing national policy decisions made by a select few people without review by all the 750+ Member of Parliaments, who are true representatives of people in the parliament? Are the MPs not capable of conveying people views and concerns? Or are we no longer government of the people, for the people and by the people? Finally why is the Supreme Court not asking the government to include MPs in such a major decision making process that effects the country? Do the oppositions MP becomes unworthy of opinion because their party did not form the government? So may question that no one dares to ask because most people don''t know the impact of data leak of Aadhar data and the future of India is stake if identity of Billion people is risked even once. Guess it is too late already as the data seems to have leaked too often or else The Tribune reporter would have been in Jail Chakki Peesing & Peesing & Peesing as Dharmendra said in Sholay)
We expect some maturity from the individuals who form the government irrespective of which party they belong to. I assume government has not forgotten that their term is only 5 years unless they win again and if they lose next election then the opposition parties who are objecting to Aadhar policies will come to power and change the policies again. Is this not waste of national resources? Is it not duty of an elected government to forma committee to get views of all the elected representatives and implement majority view & wish before implementing a software system that has potential to screw every Indians happiness? So why did government not form an all party committee to decide the vision for Aadhar? As of today no 2 political parties agree to governments Aadhar vision in totality so every time the government changes can we afford to change Aadhar Software implementation? I am also shocked that opposition parties not demanding that every elected peoples representative in parliament should be included in this decision making on Aadhar, the 1st of its kind scheme which is literally being forced upon people? Another surprising fact is that the Supreme Court that has taken suo moto decisions on various cases of less importance does not feel that it should direct the government to form an All Party Aadhar Decision Making Committee ? Gives me the feeling that for most fo the wise men of India ignorance seems to be the bliss An immature nation, barely exposed to IOT and the risks of internet are living in blissful ignorance.
I have asked enough questions, now let me talk about the right way to implement a software that can change the course of a nation. If I was the Prime Minister of this country, responsible for the actions of his ministers and his government I would be bloody concerned about the Aadhar project. I am not the type of man who will let the team do the work and when they screw-up ,tell that we screwed up because the Ministers did not do their homework or that the IT team was not smart to highlight the risks and mitigation.Let's be clear, Success or failure the onus of this ambitious scheme lies with the head of the government. So to implement a scheme like Aadhar my government would do the following things-
1) Aadhar is a scheme for the benefit of people, its a scheme which takes responsibility of capturing and protecting database of identify of every Indian and that is why it cannot be implemented without having all elected representatives of people on board. Period. If I can't convince 790 member of parliament (MP) of Indian parliament (250 Rajya Sabha & 545 Lok Sabha) that Aadhar is beneficial and safe for Indians, how do you expect me to convince entire country?
2) Form an Aadhar Vision team of MPs, ensuring each state & union is represented by at least 2 MP lead by the Minister of Home and ask them to draft a vision for Aadhar card along with help of IT, security and policy experts.
3) Form a review committee of another set of 2 MP from each state & union to review the Vision document created by the Aadhar Vision team and finalise the 1st draft for review by Home Ministry.
4) Publish the Vision on the website and take inputs from the public, God knows we have enough smart people in India to give create inputs and this is the age of crowd sourcing so why not use the knowledge bank?
5) Final Aadhar Draft is reviewed and presented in parliament with all the above inputs and gets approved by the parliament for implementation.
6) The Aadhar Vision is given to the Aadhar Information Architect to define the solution architecture and road map for the Aadhar System. The Solution architecture is reviewed by 2 independent IT consulting firms who are bound by a NDA (non disclosure agreement) and the final draft of solution is ready for implementation.
People may say that 790 people can never agree to a common vision but they would be wrong. GST was implemented including each Indian state and union territory and thousands of people were included in the decision making process and here we are talking about only 790 people who represent the entire country. Aadhar cannot be solution to all problems so let's not cook the hen that lays golden egg! My final word for those leaders who think Digital is magic and Digital is future. Let me be burst your bubble about the New Digital India! Indian digital journey started in 1980s when Rajiv Gandhi & Sam Pritroda revolutionized Indian telecom sector and STD booth started poping up everywhere. People started using the squeaky 56kbps modems with their phone lines to access internet, the state governments started their digital journey way back in 2001 with their e-governance initiatives. I had the privilege to be part of a team that bid for Goa state governments e-governance project in 2001. What has happened in last 2 years is there is lots of marketing and that has brought Digital to focus. Even the IT companies are MAKING HAY as the Digital sun shines. IT companies don't want to tell their customers that they there is nothing new about Digital except the renewed focus. Let me also remind you that many large enterprises have burnt hands when playing with Digital because they jumped into the digital well without a clear vision and road map. Problem is that with Aadhar, government is not jumping in the well alone, they are taking the plunge into the well with 1 billion people and risking their lives as well. So decision makers please keep your ego in your hip pocket and spare a thought for India. Do you really require government employees to use Aadhar to validate their daily attendance as it is happening in Mumbai Corporation and will soon be implemented across India? How is this stupid implementation ánd many similar usecases going to be useful for India''s progress and Digital journey? Sorry Mr Government you have made a blunder by now consulting experts and not learning from other countries like USA, Canada, Japan and UK. Correct your mistakes before something worse happens because history never forgives anyone. Jai hind!
The first thought that came to my mind when I heard of new Aadhar Face Recognition feature was that, next time Jio might refuse me a SIM if my face recognition does not get validated! What was originally a scheme to ensure that social benefits reached the deserving has now become a number in Jail Roster or so people fear!
The infamous Government Babu's of India who so far were famous for quite a few wrong reason are now custodian of my personal identity data including bio-metrics and iris scan. A SIM card is a commodity like any other commodity and it is definitely not a government benefit for which we have to validate our bio-metrics. We pay for the SIM service and it is responsibility of telecom company to validate I am who I claim to be. So what is governments interest in offering private Telcos to use the bio-metrics validation which was originally meant for Social Security distribution? Mr Modi is friend with quite a few world leaders. Will he care to ask the heads of USA ,Australia, Israel,Germany, China or Japan if they take the responsibility of validating SIM users identify for the private telco companies? So why is India so keen to do the identify verification job for Jio ? And now the privilege is extended to every telco company! I can understand that government wants to prevent criminals from using SIM using fake identity documents but using bio-metrics and face recognition to buy a SIM card is stretching things too far. Next the grocer may refuse to sell sugar if I do not have Aadhar card , quite like a woman was refused medical treatment in a hospital and died few days back.
Did government ever wonder why do USA, UK, Singapore did not capture bio-metrics of their citizen for their UID program? Do these countries have more terrorism incidents or higher crime because they do not use bio-metrics like #Aadhar? How is Indian smarter than these countries who have Avoided Risking their Citizens Privacy and Identity by not Capturing their iris and bio-metrics scan?
Who is making these decisions about #Aadhar for the country? Is it the Indian PM? or the Home Minister? or Mr Nandan Nilekani? From when did India start implementing national policy decisions made by a select few people without review by all the 750+ Member of Parliaments, who are true representatives of people in the parliament? Are the MPs not capable of conveying people views and concerns? Or are we no longer government of the people, for the people and by the people? Finally why is the Supreme Court not asking the government to include MPs in such a major decision making process that effects the country? Do the oppositions MP becomes unworthy of opinion because their party did not form the government? So may question that no one dares to ask because most people don''t know the impact of data leak of Aadhar data and the future of India is stake if identity of Billion people is risked even once. Guess it is too late already as the data seems to have leaked too often or else The Tribune reporter would have been in Jail Chakki Peesing & Peesing & Peesing as Dharmendra said in Sholay)
We expect some maturity from the individuals who form the government irrespective of which party they belong to. I assume government has not forgotten that their term is only 5 years unless they win again and if they lose next election then the opposition parties who are objecting to Aadhar policies will come to power and change the policies again. Is this not waste of national resources? Is it not duty of an elected government to forma committee to get views of all the elected representatives and implement majority view & wish before implementing a software system that has potential to screw every Indians happiness? So why did government not form an all party committee to decide the vision for Aadhar? As of today no 2 political parties agree to governments Aadhar vision in totality so every time the government changes can we afford to change Aadhar Software implementation? I am also shocked that opposition parties not demanding that every elected peoples representative in parliament should be included in this decision making on Aadhar, the 1st of its kind scheme which is literally being forced upon people? Another surprising fact is that the Supreme Court that has taken suo moto decisions on various cases of less importance does not feel that it should direct the government to form an All Party Aadhar Decision Making Committee ? Gives me the feeling that for most fo the wise men of India ignorance seems to be the bliss An immature nation, barely exposed to IOT and the risks of internet are living in blissful ignorance.
I have asked enough questions, now let me talk about the right way to implement a software that can change the course of a nation. If I was the Prime Minister of this country, responsible for the actions of his ministers and his government I would be bloody concerned about the Aadhar project. I am not the type of man who will let the team do the work and when they screw-up ,tell that we screwed up because the Ministers did not do their homework or that the IT team was not smart to highlight the risks and mitigation.Let's be clear, Success or failure the onus of this ambitious scheme lies with the head of the government. So to implement a scheme like Aadhar my government would do the following things-
1) Aadhar is a scheme for the benefit of people, its a scheme which takes responsibility of capturing and protecting database of identify of every Indian and that is why it cannot be implemented without having all elected representatives of people on board. Period. If I can't convince 790 member of parliament (MP) of Indian parliament (250 Rajya Sabha & 545 Lok Sabha) that Aadhar is beneficial and safe for Indians, how do you expect me to convince entire country?
2) Form an Aadhar Vision team of MPs, ensuring each state & union is represented by at least 2 MP lead by the Minister of Home and ask them to draft a vision for Aadhar card along with help of IT, security and policy experts.
3) Form a review committee of another set of 2 MP from each state & union to review the Vision document created by the Aadhar Vision team and finalise the 1st draft for review by Home Ministry.
4) Publish the Vision on the website and take inputs from the public, God knows we have enough smart people in India to give create inputs and this is the age of crowd sourcing so why not use the knowledge bank?
5) Final Aadhar Draft is reviewed and presented in parliament with all the above inputs and gets approved by the parliament for implementation.
6) The Aadhar Vision is given to the Aadhar Information Architect to define the solution architecture and road map for the Aadhar System. The Solution architecture is reviewed by 2 independent IT consulting firms who are bound by a NDA (non disclosure agreement) and the final draft of solution is ready for implementation.
People may say that 790 people can never agree to a common vision but they would be wrong. GST was implemented including each Indian state and union territory and thousands of people were included in the decision making process and here we are talking about only 790 people who represent the entire country. Aadhar cannot be solution to all problems so let's not cook the hen that lays golden egg! My final word for those leaders who think Digital is magic and Digital is future. Let me be burst your bubble about the New Digital India! Indian digital journey started in 1980s when Rajiv Gandhi & Sam Pritroda revolutionized Indian telecom sector and STD booth started poping up everywhere. People started using the squeaky 56kbps modems with their phone lines to access internet, the state governments started their digital journey way back in 2001 with their e-governance initiatives. I had the privilege to be part of a team that bid for Goa state governments e-governance project in 2001. What has happened in last 2 years is there is lots of marketing and that has brought Digital to focus. Even the IT companies are MAKING HAY as the Digital sun shines. IT companies don't want to tell their customers that they there is nothing new about Digital except the renewed focus. Let me also remind you that many large enterprises have burnt hands when playing with Digital because they jumped into the digital well without a clear vision and road map. Problem is that with Aadhar, government is not jumping in the well alone, they are taking the plunge into the well with 1 billion people and risking their lives as well. So decision makers please keep your ego in your hip pocket and spare a thought for India. Do you really require government employees to use Aadhar to validate their daily attendance as it is happening in Mumbai Corporation and will soon be implemented across India? How is this stupid implementation ánd many similar usecases going to be useful for India''s progress and Digital journey? Sorry Mr Government you have made a blunder by now consulting experts and not learning from other countries like USA, Canada, Japan and UK. Correct your mistakes before something worse happens because history never forgives anyone. Jai hind!
Where there a genuine will & concern for people,
then pray, one will always find a way.
Whre there is ego, over confidence & arrogance,
then failure is only a step away.
Your may be interested in my past posts on Aadhar
