Following is the text of the notice issued to UIDAI, Planning Commission.
To,
1. THE CHAIRPERSON,
UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION AUTHORITY OF INDIA,
Planning Commission,
BANGALORE REGIONAL OFFICE:
THE CHAIRPERSON,
'KHANIJA BHAVAN',
floor, South Wing, No. 49, 3
Racecourse Road,
BANGALORE 560001
2. THE CHAIRPERSON,
3. THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON,
LEGAL NOTICE
We have been duly instructed by our client, Mr. Mathew Thomas, son of
Late T.P. John, aged 74 years, resident of Flat No. 102, Saroj Fantasy
Apartments, Bhuvaneshwari Road, Whitefield, Bangalore 560066, to issue
this notice as following:
Our client is a citizen of India. He is issuing this notice to
you, being extremely concerned with the way all of you are abusing
your position and powers, spending huge amounts of tax payers' money
for acts that are not only against the interest of citizens of India,
and the Nation itself, but also against all accepted norms of Rule of
Law and fundamental rights, guaranteed under the Constitution of
India.
First of you being the Chairperson, of UIDAI, second of you being
Chairperson of Planning Commission and third of you being Deputy
Chairperson are aware that Biometric and personal data is being
collected under, a scheme called, 'AADHAAR' and are issuing 'Aadhaar
Number' to every resident of India. However, there is no statutory
sanction for the same. The NIAI Bill is still at the stage of being
considered before the Parliamentary Standing Committee and is yet to
be tabled in Parliament. A reading of the Bill makes clear that
'Aadhaar Number' can be issued only under the provisions of the sub
section (2) of Section 3 of the said bill. Further, a reading of the
NIAI draft bill shows that date of coming into force of the Act is
subject to notification of the Central Government in official gazette
in this regard after the bill is passed by the Parliament and after
securing presidential assent. Our client states such being the status
of the 'Aadhaar', the collection of the biometric data and personal
data and issuing of 'Aadhaar Number' does not have any statutory
sanction and hence, the same is illegal. Our client states that you
could not have legally issued any orders for such collection of data.
. Our client states that hurried spending of thousands of crores of
tax payers' money on the project is done with a malafide intention of
compelling the parliament to pass the bill and endorse ex-post-facto
all contracts entered into, and activities done by, the First of you.
Our client states that it is not known to parliamentary process,
where even before the statutory authority is constituted by the
legislative process, the authority commences functioning even before
the bill is tabled in the parliament. Under the NIAI Bill, the
national authority is to be appointed by the provisions of sub section
(1) of Section 11 of the Bill. Even before the Statute of NIAI Bill is
tabled or discussed by the parliament in the legislative process,
second and third of you have illegally constituted the UIDAI Authority
and appointed first of you as its chairperson for a purpose that is
yet to be the law. That first of you, knowing that the very purpose of
issuing 'Aadhaar number' does not have statutory sanction, has been
spending huge amount of taxpayers' money and entering into contracts
with companies that are registered in India and in other countries in
a manner that is a questionable and coloured exercise of illegally
usurped authority. Our client states that first of you do not have any
authority to enter into such contracts as you are yet to be legally
declared the authority under the proposed NIAI Bill.
All of you are aware that the Bill is pending before Parliament.
Yet, you have chosen to go ahead with the issuing of UID numbers to
people, even before the Bill is passed by Parliament and notified in
the Gazette of India and Rules made under the law for its
implementation.
Our client states that first of you is spending several Thousands
of Crores of Rupees in this activity, Without Parliamentary approval
of the Bill. You may please note that although a budgetary provision
has been made for your office, set up as part of the Planning
Commission, you cannot use this money for the purposes of issuing UID
numbers by purchasing equipment, paying contractors etc., before the
law is enacted by the parliament.
Our client states that you have appointed private organisations
and companies, registered in India and in other countries for
participating in various activities in 'Aadhaar' program. Following
are the questions raised and observations made by our client.
a) What is the criterion for selecting the company, trust, society,
NGO or any other organization being selected as Registrar under the
'Aadhaar' Scheme? You have appointed 209 companies, organizations,
societies, trusts and organizations as Registrars for Aadhaar Project.
b) What is the criterion for selecting company Alankit Assignments
Limited, (@ 1007);Alankit Finsec Limited (@ 1008) and Alankit Lifecare
Limited(@1009) Managing Directors of the said organizations seem to be
related, they have their offices in the same vicinity of Jhandewalan,
having same first name for the company and having same web and e-mail
address? Similarly what is the criterion of selecting Alakananda
Philanthropic Trust (@ 1006) whose activity is only running an
Engineering College in Orissa? Similarly, what is the criterion of
selecting Annapu Reddy Education Society (@ 1010) of Secunderabad in
Andhra Pradesh as registrars for Kerala and Tamil Nadu? Similarly,
what is the criterion of selecting Baruanagar Tea Estate Pvt. Limited
as, Registrar for Assam? What is the criterion for selecting Bellary
IT Solutions Limited for Rajasthan and Karnataka? (By rule, the
applications and tenders are filed informing the registered office of
the company. In this case, it is doubtful where the registered office
of the company is, Bellary? Bangalore? Or Rajasthan?). What is the
criterion of selecting AkebonoSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd and Asa Bhanu
Technical Services Limited ( when it comes to software services Asa
Bhanu says AkebonoSoft is its software wing!!!) Similar is the
situation of many of the companies that have been selected as
registrars for enrolling residents for issuance of 'Aadhaar Numbers'.
Our client reserves his right to seek further clarification against
other organizations and companies, as he is awaiting replies under
Right to Information Act on them.
c) All of you are aware that Biometric Data is being collected by
number of private organizations and issuing Aadhaar numbers, as you
have entered into agreement with such organizations. All of you are
also aware that Biometric and demographic data of a person is very
personal and he has every right to deny the access to the same. If
recent incidents of such manipulations recorded by sting operations at
Mysore of a news channel are any indication, you should all be alarmed
of the real probability of fraud. While you have stated that the said
data will be protected, the way the same is being manipulated and
abused make it impossible to maintain confidentialityof the biometric
and demographic information of people, whose data is thus collected.
While there are 209 organizations that are appointed as registrars and
first of you have entered into contracts with 36 companies, there is
little data available about the nature and content of the contracts
that have been entered into with these companies and organizations. As
you are paying all these companies out of taxpayers' money, everyone
is entitled to know about the kind of contracts that you have entered
into with these companies. The same is not posted on the website
maintained by first of you. First of you are not transparent on the
contracts entered into with these companies.
d) As the Registrars and Contracted Companies will have access to the
Biometric and Demographic data, they are collecting and recording, the
question is whether all of you have enquired about the antecedents and
the persons who head and operate these companies and their
antecedents. You all are aware that Biometric and Demographic data is
sensitive data, more particularly when you are collecting such data of
all the residents of India. Have the Home Ministry and other related
departments of revenue intelligence conducted enquiry about the l egal
status of these organizations and companies and submitted no objection
for you to enter into agreement with these companies? (You are aware
the way transactions have taken place and how the entirecompany law
procedures have been compromised in creating false transactions in the
case of 2G scam dogging the country, where several ministers of union
cabinet and heads of 'reputed' companies are accused.) If all of you
have such reports, why is it that the data and due diligence carried
out before entering into contracts with vendors of the UID project,
not been made public, or made available on the website of the first of
you or second of you, being Deputy Chairperson of Planning Commission
of India?
e) Our client states that first of you have not demonstrated the way
the data is secured when it is recorded by the registrars and there
are number of instances, which already speak that the information may
be easily copied by use of storage systems when the same is recorded.
You are aware that the large majority of registrars are not parties
that are governed by the State or its instrumentality and yet they are
contracted by all of you to deliver the service of collecting the
Biometric and Demographic data.
f) Our client states that from the limited information that is
available on website of first of you, that first of you through your
contracted partners like Registrars and companies who provide allied
services collecting, storing, maintaining, revising, delivering the
data as and when called for identification all have access to the
biometric and demographic data. Whether they are software companies or
other like telecommunication companies, all have access data that is
collected by all of you in the name of Aadhaar.
g) Our client states that India consists more of rural population that
is hardly literate ( given the kind standards that we have assigned to
call a person 'literate') It would be impossible to expect him/her to
utilize the so called advantage of the Aadhaar Number. It can be tool
of corruption rather than a tool to prevent the same. The Aadhaar
application form takes a declaration from the applicants allowing the
sharing of the personal data collected. Most people, (especially the
Illiterate) sign this declaration, without understanding the
implications, and imagining that it is for the Government to use the
data in any manner deemed fit. This is tantamount to cheating the
people to part with personal data for commercial exploitation by
unknown parties. The first of you has made public statements, as
reported in the press, that the "Aadhaar Platform would be opened for
Application Development". Thus, the first of you, under the pretext of
being part of the government, as an "authority" is collecting personal
data of the people of India for providing the same for private
commercial purposes. Every person who is part of the state machinery
may demand identity and with the lack of infrastructure that is
existing and lack of transparency in governance (including UIDAI as
stated in keeping the contracts it has entered into with companies
away from public domain), it will be another tool of oppression. Want
of electricity, want of telecommunication infrastructure, defective
instruments, soiled hands, injured hands, or anaemic condition of the
resident, or hundreds of other situations may make the very purpose
impossible and deny access to any or all services. A verification of
the Registrars listed speak by their very business that many of them
do not have any qualification, past experience or knowhow in
collecting, storing or verifying the digital data.
h) Our client states that Election Commission has already issued EPIC
cards to 700 millions of citizen of India. Second and Third of you
along with all the instrumentalities of the State are aware of the
same. What was the need of collection of Biometric and Demographic
data when such Cards exist? You are aware most of the services of the
state are sought by persons who are older than 18 years and those who
are not, seek the same through their parents. While aspersions are
thrown by second and third of you of authorities of your own
government, as they being inconsistent and having false records, what
is the guarantee of records that are collected by number of private
organizations and companies are not duplicated or manipulated and
abused for their own purposes and intelligence, targeting and tracking
people.
i) Our client states that first of you have without the existence of
the statute NIAI has already entered into contracts and agreements
with number of institutions and organizations, making Aadhaar data for
them for identity. The first of you and the body he heads, UIDAI, are
guilty of impersonating as an authority of the government to make the
contracting parties believe that it has the legal sanction to enter
into the contracts. You are aware that there may be number of changes
that may brought into the statute after due deliberations in the
Parliament, assuming, but not admitting, even if it were to become the
statute. Such being the case, our client asks that on what authority
first of you have entered into with such agreements?
j) All of you are aware that the data that is being collected is
sensitive data. Hence one needs to know what are all the tests and
verifications that are done in respect of the machinery that is being
bought from companies like, L 1 Identity Solutions [L 1] of USA. All
of you are aware that Directors and other officials of the said L 1
Company are former directors of Central Intelligence Agency. Our
client wants to know whether the Home Ministry or Defence Ministry,
has after conducting its enquiry regarding the machinery that is being
purchased at such huge amounts from the said company, cleared these
companies from the national security point of view.
k) Our client states that Identity of a person is very personal. A
Citizen need not produce evidence every time to prove his identity as
a citizen. More particularly, when he / she has to seek services of
the state, to which he / she has a fundamental right. Our client
states that in the numerous interviews of first of you and members and
supporters of your organizations are harking upon 'efficient
management of services' and 'efficient delivery of services' as the
necessity for introduction of Aadhaar. However, all of you often state
that there is failure of PDS system and other services of Govt of
India like, pension, NREGA, BPL cards, Ration Cards, and others. All
of you claim that there have been significant duplication of records
resulting in loss to the state, there is absolutely no guarantee of
security of identity of person or duplication of the identity In case
of discrepancy of the identity, the person has to 'update' his
identity, either biometric or demographic. There is no way by which, a
person whose biometric identity has been compromised, stolen or
misused, could have another identity. Our client states that every
resident of India who has problems with his identity will have to go
through whole lot of procedure for proving his identity. Our client
states that Aadhaar on the contrary becoming a boon to the ordinary
residents of India, it would become bane in no time.
l) OUR CLIENT STATES THAT THIS FINGERPRINTING OF PEOPLE WAS THE
GROUND ON WHICH THE FATHER OF THIS NATION DID FIRST CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
BY BURNING THE SAME IN SOUTH AFRICA. If that was the foundation of our
non-violent struggle for freedom, it is a tragedy that the self same
country that defied all the colonial laws to protect one's identity
from state abuse, is now demanding that every citizen be numbered,
finger printed and iris scanned. Their very existence is to be
established by a random number given to them by a inanimate machine.
(Unless all of you consider that machine is more intelligent and
reliable than Humans) Issuance of a number to every resident is an
insult to our dignity. Inhuman is the fact that these numbers are
issued by companies and organizations whose services are contracted by
all of you, even in the absence of a statute permitting the same. The
same is enshrined in our Constitution in chapter relating to
fundamental rights. It is violation of Right to Life and Personal
Liberty as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
m) First of you have stated in all the advertisements that securing
Aadhaar Number is optional and not mandatory. However all the
indicators show that it would become impossible for anyone to get any
service of the state without its having the numbers. Following are the
reasons. In recent times Reserve Bank of India has come with a rule
that every person who seeks to open a Bank Account has to provide
information about the person and his/her family, his gender, religion,
caste, whether he is married, if so his marriage anniversary falls on
which date, whether he owns car, whether he owns a refrigerator,
television, domestic appliances, telephone numbers, mobile numbers of
the person and his/her members of family, their e-mail addresses, et
al under the garb of KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER. All this information is
collected along with the UID Number in the application form.
Similarly, first of you are collecting through respective State
Government in the garb of KNOW YOUR RESIDENT + (KYR+) form. Government
of Karnataka, for example, is collecting, along with the data required
under Aadhaar, data in detail from each of the resident in the name of
KYR+ ( Know Your Resident + ). Thus, all the data relating to a person
who is receives services of Govt, like pensions, PDS, BPL cardholder,
and other benefits are to give all their details in the KYR+ form,
which is being collected along with issuance of Aadhaar number. It
makes amply clear that henceforth any citizen (or resident) who is
seeking any service of the state has to prove his identity by
biometric and demographic data before he / she is delivered the said
service. Statements made by first of you that only information that is
being collected is that biometric and demographic data is absolutely
false. It would deny him / her if the biometric information does not
match even though he / she is the self same person because of the
technical errors and abuse or manipulation of his / her identity. It
amounts to being treated a thief in one's own country. Though you are
aware of this situation, you are continuing with collection of the
Biometric and Demographic information from residents. Our client
states that most deprived would be illiterates, the poor, Dalits,
Minorities, Women and other marginalized communities. Rather than
assisting them Aadhaar would deprive them of government welfare
services.
n) Companies like Accenture and L 1 Identity solutions, are companies
that are providing similar services to US Department of Defense and
Intelligence departments. They have large contracts with US armed
forces. They are also said to be contracting with Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), as some of the directors of L 1 are former officials of
Department of Defense or CIA. Our client wants to know whether before
entering into with contract with these companies, have all of you
verified and enquired about suitability of these companies in
providing technology and maintenance of the data by a thorough
investigation from Home Ministry. L 1 Identity solutions is mired with
number of litigations and recent reports state that it is a loss
making company despite sale of its subsidiary. Q10 reports are any
indications. Recently it was taken over by a french company.
Similarly, Accenture and L 1 also outsource their work to various
companies. Our client wants to know whether all of you have verified
about companies that provide such services to Accenture and L1
Identity Solutions. Our client states that such outsourcing and
purchase is also a practice of number of companies that are registered
in India. You have entered into contracts with such companies like,
Wipro, HCL and others. Have all of you have verified about the
suitability of these companies for awarding such contracts? Following
is an allegation against L 1, as reported in Internet media:
http://www.nationalcorruptionindex.org/pages/profile.php?profile_id=486.
o) Our client states that you could not have entered into contracts
with these companies before a law being in place, enabling the same.
By entering into such transactions without any legislative support for
the activity, you are risking national intelligence and huge amounts
of taxpayers' money at your whim and fancy.
p) Our client wants to know why the NIAI Bill is sent to Standing
Committee on Finance instead of Standing Committee on law first for
its discussion.
q) Our client states that while issuing of EPIC Card no payments were
made to any of the citizen of India. No payments have been made to any
citizen while being issued with BPL Card whereas, for registering for
Aadhaar, certain classes of people are being incentives in money.
Tamil Nadu is one of the state where delivery of services of the state
is efficient. This state does not obtain personal data of its people
in the manner the first of you is doing. It has not paid monies to
residents to register their names and identities. Why biomertrics are
required now by you and why not allow state to have their own systems,
since the matter is a state subject, under the Constitution? Our
client is not against computerisation, but your violation of law and
the Constitution of India, by finger printing all people, taking their
iris scans, storing these with other personal data in a central
database for access by service providers.
r) Our client states that there are number of criticisms on safety of
people's Biometric data stored in a central database. Our client
states that studies by the London School of Economics (LSE), in 2005,
(on the UK ID card scheme, which similar to the UID scheme) have shown
that such projects would not achieve their objectives and are a waste
of public money. The UK Government scrapped the scheme in Jun 2009,
saying that it is "Intrusive bullying" and assault on personal
liberties. A study by the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad),
in 2011, has questioned the feasibility of your UID project and
suggested examination of its viability. Yet you continue to spend
public money recklessly on the project.
s) Our client states that you have proposed to store all the
biometric and personal data of people collected by you in a "Cloud".
"Cloud" is a computer technology term used for the computer servers of
a service provider who stores data and provides access to it, to a
client. Thus, you have said that the data would be stored in a central
database for access by many. The LSE study has found that such a
central database would itself become an attractive target for
terrorists. You are aware that there has been over 4000 attacks in the
past year, by hackers of Indian Government websites and databases,
including the office of the PMO and the Defense Ministry. In the case
of your UID scheme, hacking is not necessary, since the data would be
available to the foreign and private agencies who are your
contractors. Thus, your activities jeopardise national security.
t) Our client states that fingerprints of people collected by you
through the project, and available to your officials, other government
officials, private companies and organisations could easily be misused
to falsify documents and commit crimes. This would destroy the value
of fingerprints, as corroborative evidence in Indian courts, since it
would have to be first established as how the fingerprints came to be
on the objects in question. This could seriously harm the entire
judicial system.
u) It is well known that petty officials of private and government
agencies involved in the UID scheme are luring the unwary and / or
illiterate people by either promising benefits to those who give their
biometric and other data under to scheme or suggesting that the UID
number is essential for certain transactions. For example, recently,
some officials of the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) at Mysore
asked people wanting to transfer vehicles to produce UID numbers. The
Minister for Transport, Mr. R Ashok, had to issue a clarification
through the press that the RTA has been directed not to ask for UID
numbers.
v) Our client states that before initiating such an exercise it is
necessary that a detailed national debate be initiated rather than few
consultations held with 'civil society' at places and in language far
removed from the people of this nation. Our client strongly refutes
the kind of 'consultations' held by first of you as not being serious
discussions as many of those 'beneficiaries' are never consulted or
informed about the dangers of such identity disclosure.
w) As a responsible government, and custodians of public trust and
public monies, the first, second and third of you are to exercise
utmost prudence before spending public money. Our client states that
all of you are going about spending these huge sums of public money in
a cavalier fashion, without a feasibility study and / or cost-benefit
analysis.The claim of all of you that Aadhaar numbers and their use
would reduce or eliminate leakages of welfare funds / benefits, is
untested and unproved. It is publicly known that subsidised items,
like kerosene, are siphoned by mafia gangs operating in collusion or
otherwise with politicians and / or government officials. Such mafia
activity is the major source of leakages of these funds. Further,
thousands of Crores of Rupees worth of food grains are lost / damaged
due to poor storage facilities. Issuing Aadhaar numbers would not
prevent these losses. Your priorities are misplaced. Your above claim
regarding Aadhaar is false, frivolous and made with the malafide
intent to justify the scheme you have launched without the sanction of
law.
x) The Citizenship Act was amended to provide for a National
Population Register and National ID cards for citizens. Aadhaar, on
the other hand issues numbers and identity to all residents as opposed
to citizens. Amazingly, while the first of you claims to provide a
unique identity to all people residing in India, in the process
employed for issuing the Aadhaar numbers, you are accepting as many as
14 other identities, such as PAN cards, driving licenses, ration cards
etc, as proof of identity and proof of address, with no verification
of either address or identity. This is a flawed and dangerous process
and jeopardises national security.
OUR client therefore calls upon:
1 First of you to immediately stop all the activities of
collection of biometric and demographic data from residents of India
until such time this mechanism is approved by a notified legislation.
2. First of you to immediately initiate a larger discussion involving
not just urban 'civil society' or 'informed consent' of 'target
groups' on the issue of Aadhaar and all aspects of the same including
the errors and difficulties that may arise in respect of the
information that is disclosed to authority.
3. All of you to transparently and publicly carry out a feasibility
study and cost-benefit analysis, before any further sums from the
public exchequer is spent on the project.
4) All of you to ensure, that if at all the project is found
feasible, and in public interest, ID cards are issued only to
citizens. Non-citizen residents may be treated with a separate system
of registration, like the foreigners' registration procedure, now
available.
5) All of you take immediate steps to terminate the contracts entered
into with private companies and organisations, whether registered in
other countries or in India and take back all data gathered by them,
delete such data and further, provide proof of such destruction of the
data.
6) First of you to make a public statement that he and UIDAI are NOT
an authority of the Government of India in order so that no one is
misled anyone into believing otherwise.
7) Second and third of you to immediately issue directions to first
of you not spend tax payers' money in collection of the biometric and
demographic data from residents.
8) All of you stop entering into agreements with any company or
organization until the law is set in motion and stop making payments
to companies in the name of Aadhaar project for either purchase of
instruments or for provision of technical or other support. Further,
all of you to take steps to recover the sums paid to these vendors and
registrars, since the contracts are illegal, the first contracting
party, namely, UIDAI, having no legal basis for purporting to act as
an authority on behalf of the Government of India.
9) Initiate enquiry into all the companies, trusts, societies and
organizations, which have contracts for Aadhaar project work, through
the Home Ministry and make public all such enquiry reports.
10) First of you immediately place in public domain and make freely
available all the agreements entered into by you with all the
companies and organisations in respect of Aadhaar Project.
11) Second and third of you immediately inform all by a public
disclosure the reasons as to why the NIAI Bill is not referred to Law
Ministry but to Standing Committee on finance.
12) First of you to immediately make public and to provide to our
client the copy of the selection criterion and method of selecting the
209 companies, organizations and societies in respect of Aadhaar
Project and similarly provide the selection criterion and the
rationale behind procuring equipment, technology and services from 36
companies.
13) As on what authority and basis in the absence of law first of you
have entered into contracts with number of institutions like LIC and
others at the cost of Taxpayers money.
Our client hereby calls upon all of you to take action on all the
above issues within 10 days of receipt of this notice. In the event of
your failure to do so, our client would be constrained to initiate
such legal action as may be necessary against you in your official
capacity and in your personal capacity, as you have used taxpayers
money in an arbitrary manner and further, since you have, by your
actions, placed the security of the nation and of its people in
jeopardy.
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