Usha Ramanathan works on the jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights. She writes and speaks on issues that include the nature of law, the Bhopal Gas Disaster, mass displacement, eminent domain, civil liberties including the death penalty, beggary, criminal law, custodial institutions, the environment, and the judicial process. She has been tracking and engaging with the UID project and has written and debated extensively on the subject. In July-September 2013, she wrote a 19-part series on the UID project that was published in The Statesman, a national daily.

Her work draws heavily upon non-governmental experience in its encounters with the state; a 6 year stint with a law journal (Supreme Court Cases) as reporter from the Supreme Court; and engagement with matters of law and public policy.

She was a member of: the Expert Group on Privacy set up by the Planning Commission of India which gave in its report in October 2012; a committee (2013-14) set up in the Department of Biotechnology to review the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012; and the Committee set up by the Prime Minister's Office (2013-14) to study the socio-economic status of tribal communities which gave its report to the government in 2014.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

35 - Aadhaar: Who owns the UIDdatabase? –Part II - by Usha Ramanathan - Money Life


Aadhaar: Whoowns the UIDdatabase? –Part II - by Usha Ramanathan


Aadhaar: Who owns the UIDdatabase? –Part II
USHA RAMANATHAN | 30/04/2013 10:41 AM |

Those enrolling on the UID database have not been informed that
their data is to yield profit for the UIDAI, Rs288.15 crore a year
and its only investor, the government, does not even own the
data. How many in the government are even aware of this
investing of ownership in an entity that continues to remain
deliberately undefined and opaque

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was set up by an executive notification dated 28 January 2009. As per the
notification, the Planning Commission was to be the nodal
agency “for providing logistics, planning and budgetary support”  and to “provide initial office and IT infrastructure”. As part of its “role and responsibilities”, the UIDAI was to “issue necessary
instructions to agencies that undertake creation of databases, to
ensure standardisation of data elements that are collected and
digitised and enable collation and correlation with UID and its
partner databases”. It was to “take necessary steps to ensure
collation of the National Population Register (NPR) with the UID”.

And, the UIDAI “shall own and operate” the UID database.

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