AADHAAR: AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE

Did you hear a faint whoosh on July 8 in Delhi or Mumbai? That was just a collective sigh of relief across government—and telcos, banks and fintech firms. The Rajya Sabha had passed the Aadhaar Amendment bill.

The bill was drafted after the Supreme Court ruled in September 2018 that Aadhaar could be used for government schemes, but not by the private sector. When it failed the floor test in the Rajya Sabha in January 2019, an ordinance was issued to allow banks and telcos to use Aadhaar. That ordinance would have lapsed by September 2019.

Now, the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019, will allow banks and telcos the ‘voluntary’ use of the 12-digit number as a form of identity proof for customers.

Why do telcos and banks love Aadhaar? It lets them quickly and cheaply authenticate customers. No checking documents or visiting homes. KYC (know your customer) verification in a snap.

Reliance Jio acquired 330 million subscribers in three years. Such rapid customer acquisition would have been tough without biometric e-KYC. NGOs and others in micro-credit and financial inclusion, too, are dependent on quick KYC. Instant authentication is any service provider’s dream.

Paytm acquired 200 million customers in two years after demonetisation, using mobile numbers and a one-time password (OTP). But in 2017, the RBI demanded a KYC of all mobile wallets. The wallet boom paused, as Paytm scrambled to re-verify millions of users. Then came the Supreme Court Aadhaar ruling, and all e-KYC stopped.

If it’s cheap and quick for Jio or Paytm or SBI to use biometric e-KYC, why would they not? The new law says they can’t demand Aadhaar and must allow alternatives: passports (which most Indians don’t have), and other documents that may be notified.

The new bill repeats “voluntary” a lot, but keeps the door open for future laws to make Aadhaar mandatory for private services. Critics say the bill goes against the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling. It probably does, as it well can. It’s Parliament, after all, that makes the laws.

How voluntary is Aadhaar—can you live without it in

India? A few have tried. But journalist and digital rights campaigner Nikhil Pahwa, a fearless, Aadhaar-less citizen, can no longer file his income tax returns. He’s finally decided to voluntarily apply for Aadhaar.

Meanwhile, there is silence on the privacy bill. The Personal Data Protection bill should have been the one-stop reference for data-protection issues, which are now creeping into many places with varying degrees of protectionism: the RBI (data localisation), the ministry of commerce’s e-commerce policy draft, the new Aadhaar Amendment. So where is it?

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on July 3, Union minister for electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government was “considering bringing a Data Protection Bill”. Yes, sir, that bill was drafted in June 2018 by the Justice Srikrishna committee, and expected to reach Parliament this summer. It probably won’t. One reason: the home ministry wants government agencies and law enforcement exempted from checks and balances the privacy bill proposes.

National security? Okay. But at least the state won’t sell my data? No, wait. Data is the New Oil. The Economic Survey says the state can monetise citizen data as a public good. The state had sold driver and vehicle data to 87 private firms as of July 8. A Rs 3 crore bumper package gets you 250 million vehicle registration records and 150 million driving licence records.

But Aadhaar is safe, right? The WEF Global Risks Report 2019 says: “The largest data breach was in India, where the [Aadhaar database] suffered multiple breaches that potentially compromised the records of all 1.1 billion registered citizens… criminals were selling access to the database Rs 500 for 10 minutes.”

And so, for now, privacy is adjourned in the Republic. And your Aadhaar card is back in circulation, and private services will offer to let you use it, on a voluntary basis. To quote Don Corleone in The Godfather, it will likely be an offer you can’t refuse. ■

The new law permits the ‘voluntary’ use of Aadhaar for services. But even as its data breaches make global news, most citizens may have no alternatives