This is an original article written and edited by Dr. Anoop Prathapan.
This article was written and published on the 4th of April, 2021.
This article has inputs from my dearest school time friends Anand Menon, Mathew Jacob, Krishnakumar, Girish Sharma and Kavitha Mohan, who gave my draft a profoundly serious reading and offered me their valuable observations.
Gracias Amigas.
The AADHAR card in India
AADHAR is the unique Citizen ID issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory body under the Government of India, to its residents. It bears an eerie photograph of the bearer with a 12-digit number arranged in fours which is presumed to be the unique identity number of the individual in India. India’s National ID system is one of the biggest biometric databases on planet Earth with around 1.24 billion enrolments, encompassing around 89% of India’s population. It was created to fight a glut of logistical issues in the disbursal of money from Government Schemes to the poor as its mission, amongst many others. The first UID Card was issued to a resident of Maharashtra on 29/9/2010.
Honestly, I am not in awe of the AADHAR card disbursed in India which does not serve more purpose than providing people with yet another identity card to carry in their pockets. It does not have any security features nor is it a digital card with a chip to collect and contain real-time data.
The concept of the Unique citizen ID by principle is something that should serve more purposes than the ones they cater to, in India.
The purpose of this text is to elaborate and express my imagination on the better issuance and utilisation of something called a National ID and its multitude of uses if used in every possible way touching all boundaries of possibilities. The second part of this article deals with what a unique national ID system when collaborated with the electronic voting equipment can bring about in the present corrupt political system of the world’s biggest democracy.
My concepts of a National ID are thus: -
1. It should not be such a flimsy paper card that people can print out and laminate at any corner shop. It should be one like the vehicle number plates in UAE, the physical card provided only by the Government, with an electronic chip that can hold sufficient data and the latest technological safety features including multiple authorisations that restrict its duplication. It should have adequate security features in it by which a fraudster cannot use an unlawfully procured card.
2. There need to be only one card for everything – The National ID should hold Passport details, PAN details, Debit and Credit Card details. In the event of a citizen procuring a new resource – like the PAN or a new credit card – the digital details should be transferred to this ID only. Financial and other establishments should be de-authorised from issuing their own cards.
For example, if the credit card applicant to XYZ Bank is found eligible for a credit card with a credit limit of INR 100,000 and a credit -card number with a validity date and CVV code is generated, such data should be transferred to the National ID and no new physical card needs to be issued. This is one means by which the Government can keep a check on the number of bank accounts and credit cards each citizen holds.
On swiping at terminals, the relevant data gets transferred – for example – if the ID is swiped at a POS in a grocery or a petrol station, for a transaction value of less than or equal to 49,999 INR, only the relevant debit or credit card details need to come on the screen of the POS terminal so that they bearer can determine which bank/credit facility to pay from and effect the payment. In case of transactions equal to or above INR 50,000 – the PAN number should automatically be logged with that transaction, and details should be able to be accessed by the Income Tax Department as well.
3. It should have a geo-tagger by which the real-time location data of the holder gets tagged and logged. This feature can assist the law enforcement authorities when the bearer is a suspect in a wrongful activity that needs to be interrogated. This can raise security concerns to the bearer – therefore it should be secured in such a way that it shall be made accessible only to the Police or similar investigating agencies requiring it, on ratification by the High Court of the State. This is one of the suggestions that can attract maximum controversy as nobody would like to be stalked. But let me state here very clearly that geo-tagging details tracked by the National ID, in my concept, should be unlocked ONLY on demand of the State and it should have enough security features to not allow a hacker to pass through.
A friend of mine asked me what if he wanted no one to know if he had visited a strip club the previous night. My answer to that is, such details are NEVER unlocked even by the Department unless you are a suspect in a crime or any unlawful activity. Nobody restricts any lawful movements of yours just because you have a card that tags your location.
4. Not carrying around the National ID should invite a heavy fine – in ten thousand(s) not complying with, should attract even more severe punishments. Being in possession of another person’s National ID should attract an equal penalty unless it is that of a minor below 12 years in the same household of whom this person is the guardian of.
5. It should be a one-off card by which every transaction of the person gets tracked.
(a) Bank Account details, PAN details, Income Tax details, any single bank transaction including a withdrawal of a bare 100 Rupees.
(b) Petrol purchases
(c) Routine shopping purchases
(d) Food purchases at restaurants and other outlets – this data can be also be made available to the doctors, the bearer consults.
(e) Doctor visits and payments made at healthcare establishments. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) can be mandatorily made to include the National ID of the person as well, so that irrespective of where the patient visits the doctor in the country, his medical data and investigation reports are accessible to any doctor on his EMR. A central EMR created and distributed by the Ministry of Health, Government of India, to be purchased by doctors or medical institutions for a price shall be the best to enforce this feature. Important diagnoses like Diabetes, Hypertension, Dyslipidemia, Medical Renal or Liver diseases and allergies should get logged. Such medical data (especially of lifestyle diseases) should be made available at food purchase outlets as well so that a socially responsible vendor can deny or encourage the bearer on his choice of food.
(f) Purchase of land and other immovable property – in this context – the law should be enforced to make all payments for such purchases only by means of a single cheque or by a credit or debit card. There shall be absolutely no cash transactions of any value. The purchase and thereby the new possession should be linked to the National ID from the Registration Department and the cash transaction should be linked to the National ID from the Banks from where the money is transferred. That makes it a foolproof system devoid of any involvement of black money. Vendors of cars and gold should be mandatorily made to accept payments only through credit or debit cards and not as cash.
(g) Domestic air travels and ticket purchases
(h) Immigration details – stamping on a passport can be done additionally (if so required) to make hard copy evidence of travel. In all other situations, it can log biometric details at every point of entry and exit so that we can completely uproot the issues related to duplicate passports and fake passports.
Having said this, it is also mandatory to state that the Government should enforce certain other regulations as well, for the above recommendations to be completely effective. These five measures collectively will dispose of more black money in a country like India, than by any demonetisation
1. All transactions above the value of INR 2,000 (the value of the highest denomination of a currency bill in India) shall be made ONLY through a debit or credit card or by a cheque. No commodity shall be purchased by paying in cash for a value of more than Rs .2,000/-
2. Being in possession of cash over three times the value of the highest currency bill in India (ie, INR 2000 x 3 = 6000) should be considered a financial offence and the excess physical cash should be confiscated immediately.
3. The three exceptions to cash payments of any value should be the purchase of fuel and jewellery and donations to charitable or religious organisations where ANY purchase/donation of ANY value need to be mandatorily done only through digital methods - means - payments for fuel of any sort, jewellery of any sort and donations of any sort - shall be digital only - even if the transaction is for Re. 1/-.
The “kaanikka vanchi” (donation box) at temples or similar units at churches or gurudwaras should be taken off and a digital card reader should be placed through which people should be able to donate even as minimum as Re. 1/-
4. Professionals doing private practice should be strictly enforced to accept a fee from clients, however low or high the monetary value is, only through digital methods. The National ID should be programmed in such a way that the moment, the cumulative daily earnings total to more than or equal to INR 50,000 a month (or any other amount as called for by the Income Tax Department) through such private practice, the Income Tax Department is alerted.
5. The extra 2.5% service tax for credit card usage levied by certain rapacious merchants, just to encourage cash payments and thereby bypass the tax system of the country, should be waived off.
There should be very highly secured and encrypted website access for this National ID for the individual, through which the bearer can track the monthly expenses on his various credit facilities/bank accounts, his expenses on any particular commodity or service, his due date of payments to every financial institution, insurance policy etc. Also, the need for independent computation of income tax shall also be wiped out at the end of the financial year, as all income and expenditure are logged in one place and the web portal shall have automated programs running on it to compute the Income Tax liability of the individual in real-time.
These are services/facilities managed by distinct Government Departments. But unifying these to arise from a single card will serve the purpose of maintaining a single personal record of activities of a citizen.
The National IDs shall be issued for all kids born from a set date (let us say, 1st of January 2022). The application for the National ID should be a computerised process linked with the Obstetrics Department of every big and small hospital in the country – for that is where the new citizen is born. The National ID department shall have an office in every hospital in the country where there is a facility for childbirth. The new-born child shall leave the hospital with the National ID as a bona fide citizen of the country with his date and time of birth incorporated into the card. This eliminates the need for the umpteen formalities for procuring a passport later and completely renders a “birth certificate” useless as every single detail of birth of the child is entered into the National ID, days within the child is born. That date of birth shall thus remain his date of birth forever and conveniently changing the date of birth for early admissions to schools (or for other purposes) can thus be put to an end. Since the ID is issued at the time of childbirth, the IDs of the parents can be mandatorily made to enter into the child’s ID so that paternity/maternity disputes can be solved to a great extent later – as manipulations on the data once entered becomes impossible for the ordinary citizen.
The issuance of National ID cards by any hospital where a child is born can be audited by an independent agency and discrepancies in the number of births in the hospital and the number of IDs issued can easily be monitored.
For home deliveries, the issuance of the National ID should be made mandatory by the local body who shall intimate the National ID Department of the date and time of birth and the blood group of the newborn, failing which the parents and the authorities at the local body can be heavily penalised. Rules need to be formulated such that no home-born child shall be admitted to any school for kindergarten classes at three and a half years of age without a National ID that was taken within one month of birth.
Similarly, on the death of the bearer, the card can be surrendered by the close relative with a death certificate and frozen if they find no activity including location changes in one month and can be completely inactivated if they find no activity including location changes in a year. Having said this, an incapacitated bed-ridden, but conscious, oriented person should have the facility to keep the card activated even when it shows no physical or electronic activity. A comatose patient with no chances of recovery should have his card surrendered by the hospital authorities who last declares complete-non-recovery.
The uses are aplenty. The basic fact is that we can enforce the Law of the Land which is now repudiated by even the educated proletariat in the country, to a better extent, if more day-to-day data of each individual becomes accessible.
It is the unflinching craving for privacy that secures the unlawful mind against the Law of the Land.
For the law-abiding citizen, such an ID will ease him of many a clutter in his daily life. For the rest of the lot, they will have no means but to change, to survive in this country.
The integration of the National ID to the Electronic Voting Machine
It is election time in the country as many states including the state of Kerala go to the polls in April. Ever since electronic voting machines were introduced in the country, the results have become faster. But beyond the declaration of results becoming faster, doesn’t the EVMs have a more important role to play?
Integration of the National ID with the Electronic Voting machines will play an important role in wiping out most of the discrepancies regarding polling, especially that of duplicate votes, multiple votes and fake votes.
As a preliminary requirement, the only additional data on the stupid and illogical voter’s card of the present day – that of the constituency of the bearer – need to be incorporated into the National ID. Once it is done, and the National ID is swiped at the polling station and the voter identified by his fingerprint details, the National ID can work in harmony with the EVM to create wonders.
Let us examine how: -
1. No voter will be able to erase the ink on his index finger and vote again, as the National ID uses biometrics to identify the person who votes. This will automatically wipe out all multiple entries in the master voters list as one person will have just one National ID and even if that is manipulated, his biometric data at the polling station cannot be manipulated. So, one person can vote ONLY once. Moreover, there is absolutely no question of another person impersonating the dead to cast an extra vote.
2. The EVMs should have electronic displays by which upon scanning the biometrics of the voter, the candidates in his or her constituency are displayed on the screen. The voter can cast his vote from anywhere in the country where the election process is on. This also enables the expats to vote if the EVMs are installed on the same dates in the Indian Embassy of any country. The feeds to those EVMs shall be transmitted from India electronically and the Embassy officials according to their seniority and ranks shall be designated specific roles at the time of elections, so that there is no need for officials flying out to those countries to set things up, each time.
3. The candidates on submitting the nomination documents for contending in elections can also have their National ID numbers displayed against their names so that other candidates in the same constituency with similar names as the prominent candidates who contest, just to cut down on the vote shares of the prominent candidates, earning those undeserving votes can be brought down to a huge extent.
4. More polling stations can be made possible as larger Government offices can also be converted to polling stations and the requirement of security personnel will also be less. The scope for manipulation is what we intend to curtail here.
These revolutionary changes can be made possible only if the National ID with constituency and biometric details are synced with the EVM.
The Challenges
There are challenges in bringing about such subversive reforms in the thought processes of the 134-crore people in India. The most limiting would be the groundless protests from political parties that are not in power when such a thing is enforced, which in my opinion is aimed ONLY to obscure people. While a huge infrastructure required to maintain such a ginormous database of sensitive personal data of everyone in the country, I have felt that the returns would overdo the investments as the tax revenues upon stringent implementation of my propositions would go exponentially loftier than what it is now. The Government can enforce GST on every commodity including fuel (of all types) and still make profits much more than the present. What is only required is NOT to yield to political (or other) pressures to mitigate the basic intentions of the proposal.
Also, access to the data should be very highly restricted. A doctor’s office need not know a patient’s bank details or the number of credit cards or property he holds when the ID is swiped there. Similarly, a bank need not know what medical ailment the bearer suffers from, to issue a loan. However, if they actually need medical data of the applicant by law to process, maybe, an insurance application, they can directly demand the National ID department to release the data, who, on authorisation by the bearer can release that data to the insurer. This will directly eliminate the concept of having to secure a “medical certificate” from a doctor and the requirement to do a battery of medical tests just to prove the applicant’s health. The entire process of transmitting only the required data to each terminal/POS is technically called data-decoupling.
The requirement of a personal National ID that traces and tracks all the legal and illegal activities of a citizen are countless, and is a must, in present-day India. A country which is so tainted and politicized that, even dumb trifling politicians have the courage to challenge senior health officials of the State to stop testing for Covid on the week prior to elections so that a lesser number of people turn positive before voting, is, in my opinion, the right place where the advances in technology are put to best use to annihilate ineptitude and bring about welfare to the nation.
©2021, Anoop Prathapan
anoop.prathapan@gmail.com
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