Schrodinger's Aadhaar

OPTIONAL AND MANDATORY AT THE SAME TIME AND RAISING ISSUES OF PRIVACY AND SECURITY THE AADHAAR DEBATE IS FAR FROM OVER.

- Rochelle D’Souza

You must be wondering what an Austrian thought experiment from 1935 and India’s 12-digit unique identification number Aadhaar, have in common? They both have left people in a state of sheer confusion. While Schrodinger’s cat is neither alive nor dead (until the box is opened) the Aadhaar is both optional and mandatory – that is until this cat (neither alive nor dead) comes back to bite the government, unless they manage to bell it.

Over the past year the Indian government has come under some serious flack for the numerous economical regimes that it has put into place from demonetization to the GST but one that has left citizens most perturbed and in a state of doubt is the Aadhar Card. The debates were sparked by announcements, making Aadhaar mandatory for a slew of welfare services – including filing income tax returns, getting a PAN number and employee’s pension fund benefits. But what exactly is at stake here? The issues have ranged widely from limiting the scope of Aadhaar, to its role in social welfare, to privacy and its threat to democracy. While most banks have gone on an overdrive of threatening to freeze existing accounts unless customers to link Aadhaar, cell phone companies threaten to cut user’s connections and welfare schemes now hang in the balance as no one can decide whether or not they want link their personal information to such services or not. Digitisation and technology cannot be ignored in the current world. But then, there are several risks that need to be addressed. While most Indians want to embrace and adapt to the change, experts have questioned the process of evolution of Aadhaar from an ‘unverified’ biometric database to an authentic and fail-safe national identification.

OPTIONAL OR MANDATORY?