76 - ‘Scientific ambitions behind DNA Profiling Bill’ by Usha Ramanathan - The Hindu

‘Scientific ambitions behind DNA Profiling Bill’

VIDYA VENKAT

The Hindu
Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan. File photo: K.V. Srinivasan

Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan speaks about the the modified draft Bill which continues to raise several critical concerns relating to privacy, ethical usage of DNA samples and DNA database.

This week, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) uploaded a slightly modified draft of the Human DNA Profiling Bill on its website, opening up the controversial Bill, now tabled in Parliament, for public scrutiny.

Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan, a member of the Committee formed by the Centre in 2013 to review this Bill, spoke toThe Hindu about the modified draft Bill which continues to raise several critical concerns relating to privacy, ethical usage of DNA samples and uses of the proposed DNA database. In February this year, she wrote a dissent note to the DBT highlighting the Bill’s controversial provisions, but her concerns remain unaddressed.

“Like the Unique Identification (UID) project in which the government collected biometric samples of citizens to create a general database, marketing it as ‘Aadhaar’ or the basis for citizens to seek entitlements, the DNA database too aims to collect citizen DNA samples and make a database out of it. In UID, biometric data samples were collected from willing or coerced citizens, but there was no way people could opt out of the database once in it, as no consent clause or guidelines for sample collection were specified for it. The DNA Profiling Bill too brings similar concerns,” she says.

Biometric through Aadhaar
With the Supreme Court now coming down heavily on the government for insisting on biometric profiling of citizens through Aadhaar, the question is whether the government ought to push the draft DNA Bill in its current form, given its unresolved concerns. The Bill contains provisions for a volunteer’s index and collection of “such other DNA indices as may be specified by regulation,” which, Ms. Ramanathan says, is problematic, as it is not sure who might be coerced into giving biological samples under these provisions.

The Director of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in India (CDFD), based in Hyderabad, will always be the ex-officio member-secretary of the DNA Profiling Board as per the Bill. That the agency has been given considerable powers to take decisions regarding DNA sample usage and regulate DNA profiling in India is itself a cause for concern, she says. The reason is the 12th plan (2012-17) document put up on the Department of Science and Technology (DST) website, describes the CDFD as intending to conduct “Human population analysis with a view to eliciting signature profiling of different caste populations of India to use them in forensic DNA fingerprinting and develop DNA databases.” An identification form for DNA sample tests, put up on the CDFD website, of which The Hindu too accessed a copy, includes an entry column for filling ‘caste and origin of State’ information. Ms. Ramanathan says this is the source of current concerns regarding how an agency empowered by the proposed law might use DNA samples to profile people on the basis of caste.
Further, Schedule I under the Act, in the ‘List of Matters for DNA Profiling’ allows for data collection on maternity or paternity disputes, issues relating to pedigree, surrogacy and immigration or emigration as well.

The Board, in which CDFD plays a central role, will also control how privacy concerns are addressed. With the ongoing Supreme Court case on Aadhar not taking a definitive stance on privacy, the privacy concerns raised by the DNA database project too hang in the balance, she says. The UIDAI vs. CBI case has revealed the difficulties of safeguarding a database — apart from the technical difficulties — when such a database has been created, she says.

There are clearly scientific ambitions fuelling the DNA database project, Ms. Ramanathan says. In the same 12th plan document, CDFD is also described as aiming to work on molecular genetics, cytogenetics, biochemical genetics, newborn screening centre and develop a national database for genetic disorders.

No studies have been done on the costs involved in pursuing the extraordinary ambitions that the Bill sets out, she has pointed out in the dissent note submitted to the government. “The DNA database annual report of UK shows that the UK Home Office spent £2.2 million in 2013-14 in running the National DNA Database on behalf of the UK police forces. Can India afford to pump in such vast sums of money to aid a scientific agency’s research ambitions?” she asks.

Keywords: Human DNA Profiling Bill, Department of Biotechnology

69 - Legal expert speaks out against biometrics - The Hindu

CHENNAI, August 8, 2014

Updated: August 8, 2014 01:11 IST

Legal expert speaks out against 

ALOYSIUS XAVIER LOPEZ

“In India, we have no idea if biometrics will work or not”

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) should be wound up as biometrics has failed miserably in many parts of the country, said eminent legal expert Usha Ramanathan.

Delivering a lecture on ‘Interrogating the UID and the National Population Register,’ Ms. Ramanathan, who has been monitoring and engaging with the UID project, said: “In India, we have no idea if biometrics will work or not.”

Usha Ramanathan, an expert on law and poverty with students at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai on Thursday. Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

“Two to five per cent of people do not have fingerprints that work,” she said, pointing to the study using biometric technology which was tested on 25,000 people by the Biometrics Standards Committee before commencement of the project in 2009.

“It is an anti-people project. I am not willing to have a technology god to oversee me. Companies handling biometric data also have close links with intelligence agencies,” said Ms. Ramanathan.

Following the memorandum of understanding between the Registrar General of India and UIDAI, the National Population Register is breaking the rule in collecting biometrics, she added.

“There is simply too much we do not know. The National Population Register is actually acting illegally. The executive has systematically ignored the order of the Supreme Court. Yet there is hardly any questioning and reporting in the media.”

She stressed the need for learning the principles of civil disobedience when the State sees itself above the law. “There has never been an audit of the system. We need to destroy the system.”

“It is not a unique identity project. It is a unique identification project. It is about helping agencies identify us,” she said.

Chairing the talk and moderating the discussion, eminent lawyer Geeta Ramaseshan, clarified why we need to be wary of the hidden agenda in official schemes for creating a citizens’ roster through invasive data harvesting.

Keywords: UIDAI, Usha Ramanathan, biometrics

68 - SEMINAR ON UID PROGRAMME - The Hindu

SEMINAR ON UID PROGRAMME

A talk on ‘Interrogating the UID and the National Population Register’ will be delivered by legal expert Usha Ramanathan at Asian College of Journalism, Taramani, at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday 7th August 2014

INTERROGATING THE UID AND THE NATIONAL POPULATION REGISTER

Or why we need to be wary of the hidden agenda in official schemes for creating a citizens’ roster through invasive data harvesting, using ‘unique’ identity markers like fingerprints, iris and mucous membranes

Talk by eminent legal expert

USHA RAMANATHAN

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 5:30 - 6:15 pm

at the

Asian College of Journalism

(The Lecture Hall, II Floor)

Second Main Road

Taramani

Chennai-6000 113

Eminent lawyer GEETA RAMASESHAN will chair the talk and
moderate the discussion that follows

ALL ARE WELCOME

In the past few years, we have been told that we must all line up and have our fingerprints and irises scanned. We have been told this is the way to root out corruption; prevent leakage of public resources; protect ourselves against terrorism. The claim is, this way the poor will get money into their accounts, subsidies will be reduced and even citizenship will be secured by identifying illegal migrants.The three words that have been breezily used are ‘Unique’, which biometrics is supposed to achieve; ‘Universal’, which will pull every individual on to a common data base, and ‘Ubiquitous’, by which the identity number will be applied and recognized across platforms like income tax, health records, bank accounts, passport, travel and credit card transactions, rent, sale, marriage, employment, school and college records.

We have also been assured that the UID number never dies. Not even when we do.

Is this really a single-window cure for all that ails our system?

Will all our problems melt away with the creation of a `unique identity'?

Is this data-aggregator path the way to definitive citizenship?

The talk will interrogate the scheme to uncover its true intent. Please do come and join the conversation.

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Dr. Usha Ramanathan is an independent law researcher working on the jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights. She studied law at Madras University, the University of Nagpur and Delhi University.

Ms. Ramanathan is a nationally reputed writer and speaker on issues that include the Bhopal Gas Disaster, mass displacement, eminent domain, civil liberties, beggary, criminal law, custodial institutions, the environment and judicial process. She has been monitoring and engaging with the UID project, and has written and debated extensively on the subject. Her work draws heavily upon non-governmental experience in its encounters with the state, a six year stint with a law journal as reporter from the Supreme Court, and engaging with matters of public policy. Some of her writings can be found at http://www.ielrc.org/.

60 - ‘UIDAI, an experiment on entire population’ - Hindu

‘UIDAI, an experiment on entire population’

STAFF REPORTER

       Usha Ramanathan— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

A fortnight after the Supreme Court passed an interim order stating that Aadhaar could not be made mandatory for providing subsidies or for getting government scheme benefits, Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher, here on Monday spoke about the uncertainty about the future of the project of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Delivering a talk on the Aadhaar project and its implications in the context of the directive of the Supreme Court, she said that even as the hearing of the three oil PSUs who moved to the Supreme Court seeking modification of its earlier order is due on Tuesday, there was a need for people to raise their voice and question the process as it infringes on issues pertaining to privacy.

Stating that the UIDAI was an “experiment” on the entire population of the country. Making a dig at how the data was collected for the homeless, she said that there was a need to produce multiple identities in order to get an identity. Citing an example of a homeless person whose address for the card was that of an NGO, she said that it would create confusion at a later stage. “The system does not have an understanding of how the poor live,” she added. She said that the State should ensure that it does not infringe on the privacy of the citizens as UIDAI data can be conveniently used by the marketing industry.