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

59 - ‘Concern over Aadhaar project’s impact on lives’ - Deccan Chronicle


‘Concern over Aadhaar project’s impact on lives’

DC | 08th Oct 2013


Bengaluru: Independant law researcher Usha Ramanathan addressed the problems that surround the central government’s Aadhaar project and listed several issues that make the project unfeasible.

The lack of legal backing; possible misuse of data; breach of privacy of citizens; misidentification of a person and the possible need for re-enrollment at regular intervals were highlighted as some major issues with the project during a talk on UID Aadh­aar project and implications, here on Monday.

The talk assumes importance as it comes after a recent order of the Supreme Court that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for availing social benefits and that Aadhaar numbers/cards cannot be issued to illegal immigrants.

Ramanathan has been studying the project for the past four years and has made submissions before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance when it was considering the National Identification Auth­ority of India Bill 2010, introduced in Parlia­ment on December 3, 2010.

The Standing Committee rejected the Bill in December 2011 and no revised Bill has been introduced since then. Ramanathan expressed ‘concerns over mandatoriness and over what the UID project itself, is doing to people’s lives, to privacy, to lawlessness and to vulnerability’.

“The UIDAI has been preoccupied with speedy enrollment and it may mean that the information that is recorded about a person may be inaccurate and is likely to misidentify them,” she said.

Ramanathan accused the UIDAI authorities of being casual about it.

She said that the introducer system has collapsed and biometrics is still in its infancy and the reports produced by the UIDAI themselves suggest that there are huge gaps in possibility and performance. The UIDAI is already talking about re-enrollment at regular intervals, she added.

She said that there are major basic issues that have been ignore in case of Aadhaar project as- there is still no feasibility study, no cost:benefit analysis and no law of privacy or a law that protects the holder of the UID number from misuse and abuse. Ramanathan also expressed concern over the fact that the UIDAI owns the data base and expressly intends to profit from the sale of the data and of services linked to the data.

Ramanathan has raised several questions related to UID on various platforms on whether UID is a card or a number, UID project is about identity or identification, about control and tracking or transparency, about information or data.
Posted by at
Labels: