{"id":86704,"date":"2020-02-01T18:02:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T12:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/?p=86704"},"modified":"2020-02-01T18:02:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T12:32:37","slug":"should-the-twain-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/analysis\/should-the-twain-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Should the Twain Meet?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"tdi_1\" class=\"tdc-row\"><div class=\"vc_row tdi_2  wpb_row td-pb-row\" >\n<style scoped>\n\n\/* custom css *\/\n.tdi_2,\r\n                .tdi_2 .tdc-columns{\r\n                    min-height: 0;\r\n                }.tdi_2,\r\n\t\t\t\t.tdi_2 .tdc-columns{\r\n\t\t\t\t    display: block;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_2 .tdc-columns{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: 100%;\r\n\t\t\t\t}\n<\/style><div class=\"vc_column tdi_4  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<style scoped>\n\n\/* custom css *\/\n.tdi_4{\r\n                    vertical-align: baseline;\r\n                }.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper,\r\n\t\t\t\t.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{\r\n\t\t\t\t    display: block;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: 100%;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .vc_row_inner{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: auto;\r\n\t\t\t\t}.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper{\r\n\t\t\t\t    width: auto;\r\n\t\t\t\t    height: auto;\r\n\t\t\t\t}\n<\/style><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper wpb_text_column td_block_wrap td_block_wrap vc_column_text tdi_5  tagdiv-type td-pb-border-top td_block_template_1\"  data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_5\" ><div class=\"td-block-title-wrap\"><\/div><div class=\"td-fix-index\"><p><strong>While the law ministry okayed the linking, questions are being asked about its legality and the possibility of massive data leak, fraud and theft which can endanger India\u2019s democracy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By MG Devasahayam<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Union Law Ministry is stated to have given the green signal to the Election Commission (EC) to resume linking of Voter ID with Aadhaar. Last August, in a letter addressed to the law secretary, the EC had proposed amendments to the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Aadhaar Act, 2016, and powers to collect and use Aadhaar data for \u201ccleaning\u201d the voters\u2019 list as a \u201cback-end exercise\u201d. Linking voter ID with Aadhaar would certainly cleanse the voters\u2019 list but the question is\u2014list of which voters?<\/p>\n<p>Let us look at the background briefly. On September 1, 2019, the EC launched a nationwide electoral verification programme. People were asked to get their voter IDs verified by local EC representatives to avoid invalidation of the cards, either through an online process or offline by submitting their Aadhaar details. The message given out was: \u201cIf you fail to get your voter ID card verified with the Aadhaar number during this period, it will become invalidated.\u201d This was intriguing because a similar exercise undertaken in 2015 had to be dropped when a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court ruled that Aadhaar numbers could only be used for accessing welfare services such as subsidised rations from the public distribution system, kerosene and LPG.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2015, the EC had launched the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Program (NERPAP). As the name suggests, its aim was to \u201cclean up\u201d India\u2019s electoral rolls using Aadhaar authentication. Or, in other words, to eliminate potential voter fraud by deleting ghosts or people who had somehow got more than one voter ID from the system. The programme\u2019s goals and deadlines were ambitious: internal EC documents show that it wanted to achieve draft electoral rolls that were \u201c100% error-free\u201d and \u201c100% multiple-entry free\u201d. The extensive coverage of the scheme before it was shut down by the Supreme Court in August 2015 is surprising. By the time the initiative was forcibly shut down, it had collected the Aadhaar numbers of over 300 million voters. The EC publicly claimed that 320 million voter IDs were linked to Aadhaar during NERPAP in the span of just three months and that another 545 million Aadhaar numbers would be linked to the remaining voter IDs in six months once the Supreme Court allowed it.<\/p>\n<p>In the ensuing confusion, the names of 2.8 million voters in Telangana alone got deleted, which only came to light when the state went to the polls in 2018. This was grudgingly admitted by the EC in an RTI reply. EC officials claim that the exercise is meant to weed out bogus\/fake voters. But the security of citizens\u2019 data and privacy issues are a matter of great concern. Not a single agency in India has yet done any study on how safe data is, once linked to the Aadhaar number. Neither the government nor the Unique Identification Authority of India would have any control over the usage of this data, which remains strictly under the jurisdiction of the foreign agency that collects it.<\/p>\n<p>How did the EC manage to link voter IDs of over 300 million people with their respective Aadhaar numbers in just three months? Was the consent of voters taken for this exercise? If voters were in the loop, as the EC has consistently maintained, was informed consent taken with citizens clear on how their data could be used? Individual states offer a few clues with regard to the bulk seeding of Aadhaar numbers. For instance, in Maharashtra, only 3,01,000 voters had registered themselves for the voter ID-Aadhaar linking programme by the beginning of May 2015, but when the programme ended three months later, the chief electoral officer of the state claimed that 1.8 million voters had provided their Aadhaar numbers. On a national scale, the numbers look even more stark. A report published in DNA newspaper noted that by May 2015, 130 million voters had applied for linking. Given these numbers, how did the EC link 320 million voters in just three months and what means did it employ?<\/p>\n<p>There are multiple ways to seed Aadhaar to new databases. The first is \u201corganic seeding\u201d where an individual provides the data himself. In this \u201cmanual\u201d mode, a citizen links his voter ID to his Aadhaar himself. To help out with this, the EC used the National Voters\u2019 Service Portal (NVSP). All people had to do was enter their voter ID number, a few demographic details and their Aadhaar number. A person could then verify their Aadhaar number through a one time password (OTP) sent to his smartphone, after which the voter ID would be linked. However, this approach is slower as it involves a citizen\u2019s willingness: they have to come forward on their own and sign up to link their voter ID and Aadhaar.<\/p>\n<p>The other method is inorganic seeding, where details of the elector are collected and seeded automatically with Aadhaar with the help of an algorithm. No one knows what this algorithm is and even RTI queries have not been able to get it out of the EC.<\/p>\n<p>The EC seems to have adopted a host of tactics to rapidly link hundreds of millions of voter IDs to Aadhaar numbers in 2015, some of which may have skirted the boundary between responsible data-sharing practices and outright violations of privacy and user consent. According to the Commission\u2019s internal documentation, obtained through multiple RTI requests, in at least four major states, local EC offices had access to parts of the National Population Register (NPR) database, which helped hasten the Aadhaar seeding process.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Linking of voter ID cards with Aadhaar raises a number of doubts. In a meeting in May 2015, the CEC himself raised concerns regarding complaints they had received, stating that the names of a number of voters were deleted from the electoral rolls for not furnishing Aadhaar.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prasanna S, a lawyer involved in the Aadhaar litigation, said: \u201cThe whole process of linking voter ID with Aadhaar is illegal. There is no legal mention of that exercise. The EC cannot choose a process to eliminate voters without any constitutional backing of a law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even otherwise, Aadhaar is known more for exclusion than inclusion as shown up in many states. In fact, getting Aadhaar itself is a herculean task for the poor. Often, they have to pay at least Rs 500 to get their Aadhaar cards made, or even to update their addresses, so most poor people just skip it. So if Aadhaar and voter IDs are linked, the poor and disadvantaged would not merely lose access to welfare and subsidised goods and services, but would get disenfranchised as well.<\/p>\n<p>The rush to link all data with Aadhaar is bizarre, especially in the light of the 2017 Supreme Court ruling (Puttasamy) that privacy is a citizen\u2019s fundamental right as it is inherent to the right to life and liberty. Linking voter IDs with Aadhaar is fraught with serious dangers. RTI replies have revealed that 80 million fake or fraudulent Aadhaar numbers were detected in 2014-15. RTI queries have also shown that manipulation of data is a strong possibility, and this might expose the country\u2019s electoral system to outside fraud.<\/p>\n<p>The EC is probably going in for this drastic move under the cover of fulfilling \u201clegitimate state interest\u201d as one of the criteria laid down by the Supreme Court in the Puttasamy case, while judging the permissible limit for invasion of privacy when testing the validity of any legislation. But the question is whether the EC\u2019s task is to take care of state interest or safeguard a citizen\u2019s interest. Is the EC an instrumentality of the state or a constitutionally mandated institution for a citizen\u2019s right to free and fair elections? The EC seems to be content with being a mere extension of the state.<\/p>\n<p>Justice BN Srikrishna, a former judge of the Supreme Court, categorically condemned the EC\u2019s efforts to link voter ID with Aadhaar as \u201cthe most dangerous situation\u201d. He compared the consequences to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which was found to have illegally mined, harvested and shared personal information of over 87 million Facebook users to the Trump presidential campaign in 2016. The UK-based political consulting firm was also reported to have shared the data of citizens with political parties in India. \u201cAre we now happy with what Cambridge Analytica did,\u201d he asked and went on to say: \u201cWe made so much noise about it. We called them all kinds of bad names. Now you\u2019ll have this in the country in our backyard. In the event, instead of having a Cambridge Analytica, you\u2019ll have a Delhi Analytica, a Mumbai Analytica, a Calcutta Analytica&#8230;.\u201d Incidentally, Justice Srikrishna chaired the expert committee that drafted India\u2019s Personal Data Protection Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Even a distinct possibility of such a massive data leak, fraud and theft can severely endanger India\u2019s democracy. The twain of Voter ID and Aadhaar should, therefore, never meet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><em>\u2014The writer is a former Army &amp; IAS officer<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lead pic: People queue to get their Aadhaar cards in New Delhi\/Photo: Anil Shakya<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/s3apnlivemumbai.s3-website.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/IL\/uploads\/2020\/02\/opinion-Linking-Voter-ID-Aadhaar-devasahyam.pdf\">Download the PDF Version of the article here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[72461],"tags":[5119,18776,2680,46124,52172],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/IL\/uploads\/2020\/02\/01180120\/MG_5929-AADHAAR-Photo-by-anil-shakya-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}