December 2021 saw the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha pass the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, to link electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem. The Bill’s objective, as claimed, is to weed out ‘bogus voters’, solve the multiple enrolment problem, and purify the election process. The opposition voiced concerns about the possible disenfranchisement of legitimate voters who are unwilling or unable to submit Aadhaar details, as well as violations of privacy that the Bill raises. A look at the debates over the Bill may be productive to understand these complex issues.

The book “Dissent on Aadhaar: Big Data Meets Big Brother’, edited by Reetika Khera and published by Orient Blackswan in 2019, is a collection of fifteen essays that focus on the concerns that the Aadhaar ecosystem raises. With an introduction and a post-script from Khera, the book aims to bust myths around the Aadhaar project and how, rather than its purported intent to lead to an inclusive system of welfare, Aadhaar would work as a tool of exclusion. This, apart from the threats to the right to privacy, becomes a key contention against Aadhaar, as highlighted in the book.

The contributors of the book include the likes of Anumeha Yadav, Jean Dreze, Shyam Divan, and Usha Ramanathan – “a community of dissenters” – as Khera herself mentions in the introduction.  The first two chapters of the book “blow the lid” are on the welfare claims of Aadhaar.

In the first chapter, Khera focuses on the “right to life” aspect of the discussion that often does not get highlighted, rather than the much-discussed “right to privacy” aspect. A common justification of the Aadhaar project has been often pointed out its role in reducing corruption. The types of corruption that the implementation can address are “eligibility fraud” or the inclusion of persons that do not meet official eligibility criteria, “identity fraud” or when a person’s benefits are fraudulently claimed by another, and “quantity fraud” or eligible persons receiving less than their entitlements. Khera shows that Aadhaar can only help counter identity fraud like duplicates and ghosts (pp. 47). However, she also notes that after the rollout of the National Food Security Act 2013, there is evidence of hardly any identity fraud in states that use the Socio-Economic Caste Census data, such as West Bengal, Bihar, and Jharkhand. Aadhaar integration cannot eliminate eligibility fraud. This raised serious questions about its role in detecting “bogus” or “ineligible” cards. Aadhaar can partially help identify quantity fraud but cannot help in cases of overcharging (charging a higher amount than what is mandated, not returning small change) and quality fraud (replacing PDS grains with lower quality grains) (pp. 45). 

The book debunks several myths about the Aadhaar project. The welfare myth of Aadhaar is one of the biggest claims made in its defence. However, this is far from the truth. Jean Dreze notes, “If the name of a worker employed under the NREGA is spelt differently in his job card and Aadhaar card, he is at risk of not being paid. If an old widow’s age happens to be understated on her Aadhaar card, she may be deprived of the pension that keeps her alive” (pp. 78).

Dreze’s essay points out how the Aadhaar project started as a voluntary facility initially swayed many sceptics. The possibility of Aadhaar being mandatory became real as the central government imposed Aadhaar on various schemes. What started as a voluntary mechanism soon became essential for functioning, whether to use a mobile phone or get a driving licence or have a civil marriage or get paid as an NREGA worker (pp. 70).

The privacy debate has also been touched upon in the book in the second and third chapters. “Aadhaar opens the door to mass surveillance,” writes Dreze. This becomes possible as Aadhaar enabled databases are accessible to the government under the blanket of “national security”, a clear violation of the fundamental right to privacy (pp. 71). It is noteworthy that no other country, rather no democratic country, has such a powerful surveillance infrastructure to make its own citizens hostages. Moreover, Aadhaar also serves as a tool for mining and collating personal data. 

The book also shows that the Aadhaar project cannot be fixed as its very choice of technology – such as biometrics – is fundamentally flawed. Sunil Abraham notes that one cannot use good technology to fix bad laws. He writes, “Aadhaar is a surveillance project masquerading as a development intervention because it uses biometrics” (pp. 94). Indeed, there is no way of knowing if Aadhaar was the user’s consent choice since both authentication and identification for subsidies or services do not require the conscious cooperation of the data subject. Viswanath further points out that while biometrics is well suited for identification, the Aadhaar programme attempts to use it as a means of identity. There is a difference between identity and identification, as identification can happen without the cooperation of the individual (pp. 109).

The book also highlights the legal overview of the project. Usha Ramanathan’s chapter delves into how the government has emerged as a customer in a data-driven economy. There is also a comparison of Aadhaar with the Social Security Number (SSN) mechanism of the United States. Srujana Bej points out that while SSN was a result of a law that created various entitlements and has repeatedly rejected the use of biometric information and photographs, the foundation of Aadhaar is on these grounds. In fact, she notes that the closest approximation of the SSN is the Permanent Account Number (PAN) and not the Aadhaar (pp. 198).

In a context where the Aadhar looms over our everyday life, the book offers us a much-needed understanding of the Aadhaar project.  As the new Bill is passed in both the houses of the Indian parliament, it becomes important to understand who these ‘bogus voters’ are who would eventually suffer. Aadhaar, as was initially told, is for all residents whether they are citizens or not. But the recent Bill is, in fact, paving the way of making it a weapon against “immigrants” or communities branded as “illegal”.

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Ritwika Patgiri is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Economics of the South Asian University, New Delhi.