The Indian National ID Card Project

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prateeksudan

Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by prateeksudan »

I'm an idiot and a bigot.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Pranay »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8241545.stm
A planned Unique Identification (UID) number for Indian citizens will be backed by biometric authentication, the head of the project has told BBC.

Fingerprints and photographs of more than a billion people will be taken when they are registered for the identity number, Nandan Nilekani said.

The biometric evidence will be stored online in what will be the biggest such national database in the world.

The first UID numbers will be issued in about 12-18 months, he said.

Mr Nilekani said that the "technology challenge" in putting together a biometric record of one billion citizens was "immense".

"Biometrics on this scale has not been carried out before. They will be stored online and help in instant online authentication of the identity of every Indian," he said.
The unique number will not be an identity card - instead, the number will be included in documents like election identity cards, PAN cards and bank account numbers.

India's efforts at giving every citizen an identity number is possibly one of the greatest challenges facing the government.

A fisherman in Mumbai with an identity card
Every Indian is expected to have a national identity number by 2014

"There is the technological challenge, there is a challenge of the scale of work, and there is a complex governance challenge, working with so many departments and states," Mr Nilekani said.

The state of Karnataka in the south, India's capital, Delhi, and Meghalaya state in the north-east are among the states which may take part in early pilots.

The project's main technology centre will be based in Bangalore, with eight regional centres working with the various states.

Unlike in the US and UK, Indians do not have a common federal identity number.

The government expects to give a unique identification number to every Indian citizen within five years.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Prasanth »

OMG :(( Nandan is like freaking bullsh*ting in broad daylight. He will only be issuing numbers? Hell, any tom dick and harry can do that, just use the PAN number. You don't have to waste money creating a new department just for that. Even if you need to create a new number, you need to issue the card too, else we will be back to square one. No unified system/card. Btw, what's the point if its not mandatory...f*ck, I am pissed now...too much Indian tongue twisting!!

The Chinese announced they would have a digital ID in 2004. I remember I was so happy when India said we were gonna do one too in 2005. Hell, after 5 years, the Chinese had printed out 1bil card, complete with home made encryption, "unique identification number" and home made chip. All done by only Chinese companies due to national security reasons.

Where are we? We set up a new department and plan to issue NUMBERS? :evil:
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by milindc »

The number will be unique and given after bio-metric.
So I could go and get multiple PAN cards since it is not tied to bio-metric, but with this it will make more difficult.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Neshant »

Micrisoft wants to participate in the UID project...
It won't be long before the database goes from Microsoft to the CIA.
3. It will not be a smart card. Does t mean no biometric identification?? if so, how do you identify the person??
If it has no biometric ID on it, its a worthless document with a number on it. But there will be good money to be made if you can get in on the racket of making cards.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by rajsunder »

Its an interview with Nandan Nilakeni , it removed a lots of my doubts about the project, hope this one helps the other members out here.


http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_p ... id=1156619
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by rajsunder »

Prasanth wrote:OMG :(( Nandan is like freaking bullsh*ting in broad daylight. He will only be issuing numbers? Hell, any tom dick and harry can do that, just use the PAN number. You don't have to waste money creating a new department just for that. Even if you need to create a new number, you need to issue the card too, else we will be back to square one. No unified system/card. Btw, what's the point if its not mandatory...f*ck, I am pissed now...too much Indian tongue twisting!!

The Chinese announced they would have a digital ID in 2004. I remember I was so happy when India said we were gonna do one too in 2005. Hell, after 5 years, the Chinese had printed out 1bil card, complete with home made encryption, "unique identification number" and home made chip. All done by only Chinese companies due to national security reasons.

Where are we? We set up a new department and plan to issue NUMBERS? :evil:
check the interview in the above link provided. This is just one part of the whole system, it just provides the confirmation that a person is indeed what he says he is and thats it. Nandan while responding to one of the interview question says that this system is designed to say Yes/No and thats it and the other systems that use this system have to implement all thats necessary.
Think in a modular fashion or in IT terms, Object orientedly(is this a word or did i just make it :mrgreen: .
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Amitabh »

Prasanth wrote:OMG :(( Nandan is like freaking bullsh*ting in broad daylight. He will only be issuing numbers? Hell, any tom dick and harry can do that, just use the PAN number. You don't have to waste money creating a new department just for that. Even if you need to create a new number, you need to issue the card too, else we will be back to square one. No unified system/card. Btw, what's the point if its not mandatory...f*ck, I am pissed now...too much Indian tongue twisting!!

The Chinese announced they would have a digital ID in 2004. I remember I was so happy when India said we were gonna do one too in 2005. Hell, after 5 years, the Chinese had printed out 1bil card, complete with home made encryption, "unique identification number" and home made chip. All done by only Chinese companies due to national security reasons.

Where are we? We set up a new department and plan to issue NUMBERS? :evil:
Wow you really seem to understand the issues deeply. It's just Manmohan Singh and Nandan Nilekani who have contributed nothing all their lives who are the superficial thinkers here. :roll:

After all the country does not have any problem with targeting government expenditure to the truly needy (subsidised diesel for BMW 320ds anyone?), bringing the 80 per cent of people who do not have a bank account into the formal financial sector or ensuring that the correctly identified poor develop an asset base that can be used to build a credit history and bring them into the formal credit system so that they can become entrepreneurs/consumers/citizens. Or to ensure that NREGA funds go to actual workers rather than crooked politicians or contractors. None of this matters, really... :oops:
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by vishwakarmaa »

rajsunder wrote:Its an interview with Nandan Nilakeni , it removed a lots of my doubts about the project, hope this one helps the other members out here.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_p ... id=1156619
In above clip, the anchor gives 3 IIT students a chance to ask a question to Nilekani on project.

They turned out with a total stupid question and arrogant way to ask it. He is reffering Nilekani as 'aey nandan' as if he knows Nilekani personally and he is his loongi friend. No wonder the IITians are so disconnected with grassroots and bloating in their own small world.

The anchor cut the other two students off air and they lost their chance to ask questions. :rotfl:

The last time I asked one of IIT guy if its possible to recover deleted data from a formatted hard disk. His answer was "NO" and he was laughing off his friend for being dumb, because I told him that its possible. That shows how little IITians know and how big they bloat with 'elite' syndrome.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Prasad »

@^^

Can we not generalise please? There are enough IITians who are fundoos and sadly quite a few who are nuts. So generalising them to be this or that certainly doesn't add any value to this thread.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by vishwakarmaa »

Fundoos are in minority. Most IITians love to gloat over their status.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by rajsunder »

vishwakarmaa wrote:
rajsunder wrote:Its an interview with Nandan Nilakeni , it removed a lots of my doubts about the project, hope this one helps the other members out here.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_p ... id=1156619
In above clip, the anchor gives 3 IIT students a chance to ask a question to Nilekani on project.

They turned out with a total stupid question and arrogant way to ask it. He is reffering Nilekani as 'aey nandan' as if he knows Nilekani personally and he is his loongi friend. No wonder the IITians are so disconnected with grassroots and bloating in their own small world.

The anchor cut the other two students off air and they lost their chance to ask questions. :rotfl:

The last time I asked one of IIT guy if its possible to recover deleted data from a formatted hard disk. His answer was "NO" and he was laughing off his friend for being dumb, because I told him that its possible. That shows how little IITians know and how big they bloat with 'elite' syndrome.
might be a kota candidate??
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by kmkraoind »

2011 To Use All Fingerprints or Iris Scan For National Population Register

Government may be using all the 10 fingerprints or opt for iris scanning for gathering data during 2011 census for the National Population Register. This will make the access of data easier for the Unique Identification Number project.

The Unique Identification Number (UID) scheme, which is expected to roll out the first number in 12-18 months, will be first conferred on the beneficiaries of the centre's flagship programme under the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).

The unique 16-digit UID will not confer any rights.

He said "several thousand crore" will be required to fund the scheme but details of who exactly will do the financing are yet to be finalised. He dismissed reports that the project would cost about 1.5 lakh crore.

The UID is a concept designed mainly as an inclusive scheme for the benefit of the poor and the marginalised and for better targeting of anti-poverty and developmental programmes which are now plagued by inadequacies like duplicate and anonymous beneficiaries, he said in an interview to PTI.

“We have an agreement with the Home Ministry that when they do the enumeration as part of the National Population Register, they do intend to capture the biometrics using the standards that we will publish," he said.

When asked if UID project will be a part of the 2011 census, he said "I told you as part of NPR, they are going to collect data in our format."

Briefing about the biometric measures used for collecting data for NPR, he mentioned that the finals details will be decided on later.

"We certainly think we will take all the ten finger prints. We will take a picture. The question we don't know whether at this scale of operation, 10 fingerprints will be adequate... we have not closed the option of an iris scan," he said when asked if his office was also looking at the possibility of taking iris scan rather than finger prints.

He mentioned that a biometric committee under Dr B K Gairola, Director General of National Informatics Centre, has been set up for serving the purpose.

"These are all designs choices that we will freeze in the next 3-4 months," he said.

The UID number will be an identity to all people, especially the poor and marginalised so that they can avail the government services without any problems.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Neshant »

they better not screw it up. they have only one chance to get it right given the costs involved.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by ramana »

I know someone who got back last week after working two months on the mechanics of the UID.

Meanwhile Hindu reports:

AP to be pilot for the UID
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Pranav »

The UID project does not directly address the illegal Bangladeshi immigrant issue, but it has a lot of potential.

It is the states that have the responsibility of determining who is an illegal immigrant. Once a state declares somebody to be an illegal immigrant, then, if the uniqueness checks actually work, he will not be able to get himself legalized in any other state. So somebody declared to be Bangladeshi in say Mumbai will be permanently tagged as a Bangladeshi.

IMHO it is important to include genetic fingerprints - would make the uniqueness bulletproof. Would also help in tracing ancestries, which would also be useful in investigating illegal immigrants. I think costs can be managed, when doing things on a large scale.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by sinha »

Regarding Bangladeshi Issue - most of our govt arms have given up so why blame the UID team for just saying resident of India rather than citizen of India will be in UID.
What can happen is that once it sees substantial deployment, no new infiltrations are going to be possible. a 40 year old Bangladeshi migrant cant walk in and ask for UID - it would be suspicious.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by sinha »

kmkraoind wrote:
"We certainly think we will take all the ten finger prints. We will take a picture. The question we don't know whether at this scale of operation, 10 fingerprints will be adequate... we have not closed the option of an iris scan," he said when asked if his office was also looking at the possibility of taking iris scan rather than finger prints.

He mentioned that a biometric committee under Dr B K Gairola, Director General of National Informatics Centre, has been set up for serving the purpose.

"These are all designs choices that we will freeze in the next 3-4 months," he said.
No known system in the world has implemented Multi-Biometric de-duplication and fusion to the scale of 600 Million + entities. The sense I get seeing all this is that people are underestimating technical challenge.

So this committee has its task cut out. In the end, they will end up building a google scale data center and a massive compute grid which keeps doing de-dup runs for new enrollments.
Worst case, they may take a very stupid decision of allowing multiple System integrator to choose a finger print , IRIS and face recognition technology partner and run de-dups and provide the results to UIDIA at the end of the day.

Please Please invent something for India scale rather than choosing the same old L1, sagem, Cognitec, NEC....
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Tanaji »

The main gripe I have with UID is it does not define its charter, or what problem its trying to solve. From various public statements:
  • It is not going to solve the issue of illegals i.e. it is not the mandate of UID to ensure that it is not issued to a person that is illegally in the country
  • It is not going to replace other identifiers in use with various databases, and even more important, it is not mandatory to government organisations to use UID as even a secondary, bridging identifier.
So what purpose is this UID? Is it to have the necessary infrastructure in place? From an end user perspective there is zero motivation to get one.

I will not be surprised if Nilekani comes up with a statement that it is not his mandate to ensure that the identifier is unique either, given the above 2 precedents.
Nandan while responding to one of the interview question says that this system is designed to say Yes/No and thats it and the other systems that use this system have to implement all thats necessary.
Think in a modular fashion or in IT terms, Object orientedly(is this a word or did i just make it
Er, we already have such an identifier that is unique and states that the person is who he is. It is also vetted. It is called a passport. Perhaps Nilekani should make enquiries about what a passport is.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Sachin »

Tanaji wrote:Er, we already have such an identifier that is unique and states that the person is who he is. It is also vetted. It is called a passport. Perhaps Nilekani should make enquiries about what a passport is.
I seriously doubt whether this is some kind of a gimmick to get a cabinet rank for another Infosys chap. Never liked the Narayanamurthy-S.M Krishna cabal, right when SMK was Kar.CM.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Tanaji »

This whole National ID thing is very strange. It does not aim to solve anything, promises nothing and asks for thousands of crores in funding.

Is this program the equivalent of Garibi Hatao Program for the IT folks?
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by ramana »

Tanaji wrote:This whole National ID thing is very strange. It does not aim to solve anything, promises nothing and asks for thousands of crores in funding.

Is this program the equivalent of Garibi Hatao Program for the IT folks?

Yes. I was told so.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by vera_k »

^^^

You mean the whole thing is another patronage scam? What companies are not being rewarded under this scheme?
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Sachin »

Tanaji wrote:Is this program the equivalent .....
It would be more of an "Infosys ke Garibi Hatao Program". And these are the folks who many consider as the modern-day role models for the country :(.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Rahul Mehta »

Tanaji wrote:Is this program the equivalent of Garibi Hatao Program for the IT folks?
At least 3-5 postors agreed that NID is just a scam.

----

And when I posted this on 26-jun-2009, it was rubbed off as "just another figment of imagination from RM" :(( :(
Sridhar: Could people who know talk about
a. What are the complexities involved in the project? Other countries, including technologically inferior countries like TSP, seem to have implemented it fairly successfully in the past.
b. Why does it need a cabinet level appointee, that too of the stature of Nilekani, to successfully implement the project?

I think it is fantastic that people like him are being inducted into the Government. I am just curious as to the appointment of Nilekani to a position which would have normally been considered a Jt. Secretary position in the Government. Also, we have a unique situation of a cabinet level appointee functioning under a body that has non-Cabinet level appointees (only the Dy. Chairman of the Planning Commission is a Cabinet level appointee, the rest of its members are not - Nilekani will operate under the entire Planning Commission).

Rahul Mehta: Yes. NID can be implemented without fanfare. Fanfare is needed most, when Govt does NOT want to do something and want to convince the world that Govt is serious about it !! IOW, if Congress MPs were at all serious about NID, they would have done it 20 years back. And they would have started in 2004 when they came into power and finished it in 6 months. If BJP MPs were serious about it, they would have finished it in 6 years time. But to hide lack of intention, a high profile person is given high profile post and drum beating is done all the way.
I told ya so 4 months ago that NID is just another scam. Its main purpose is to misguide people and make them believe that GoI is serious about NID. And the money they will siphon off is a small additional damage compared to the real damage being time we lose and the fact that lakhs of BDites will get into Asam in the time we lose. But 4 months ago, you guys thought that Mahatma MMS is serious about MMS and elitemen like Sri Nandanji can never be a scam master. And so my allegations against Mahatma MMS and gentle-elitemen Nandan were dismissed as another wild imagination. But 4 months later, you have finally realized the truth. Well, better later than never.

---

So Yes Tanaji, I agree with you that NID is scam. So now let me ask you my patent-cum-USP question : what solution do you propose? :rotfl: :mrgreen:
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Sachin »

Rahul Mehta wrote:So Yes Tanaji, I agree with you that NID is scam. So now let me ask you my patent-cum-USP question : what solution do you propose? :rotfl: :mrgreen:
I am not batting for Tanaji, but my take would be to;
1. continue to use the existing system of passports. Let the passport issue procedure have all the steps as it has now, and computerise it so that it becomes faster (TCS is already working on that).
2. issue a Bharatiya Rail 2nd Class A/C Travel Warrant for Mr.Nandan Nilekani from NDLS to SBC, and ask him to pack his bags and move back to Infosys.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Tanaji »

^^^

Completely agree. If the stated aim of UID is merely to prove identity (and issue a unique identifier) and nothing else, it is far more cheaper and effective to leverage the existing Passport infrastructure. I agree carrying a passport is cumbersome, so they can work on getting it into a more manageable card sized carrying format. Heck, might as well get finger prints if you want "bio metric" tag to be added, it will boost the security of the passport as well. But what is the point of creating a duplicate infrastructure to do the same job?

At the very least the babus should work on using the UID as a secondary identifier to their databases in every department, how difficult is that to implement? There is so much more bang for the buck to be had if this happens. It will also make the wet dream of "absolute control of every citizen" that every babu has a reality...
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by AjayKK »

What Nilekani's unique ID project is all about
DNA Bureau
Friday, November 6, 2009 2:00 IST

Is it a card? Is it a confirmation of citizenship? Will it replace the voter ID card? Will it get you a ration card? Will the tax department accept it as valid identity for issuing you a permanent account number (PAN)?

Ask the man himself, and he says simply: "The unique ID is about establishing identity, not anything else. The unique ID will just confirm that the person is who he claims he is." In an interaction with Dainik Bhaskar and DNA on Wednesday, Nilekani said that the ID number will be unique to a particular set of biometric information -- eyes (irises) and all 10 fingerprints.

Link
Dear Editor, what are "irises" ? Do we have to grow something new for Nandan ? Does it mean that it will scan not one iris, but both irides and will also store ten fingerprints of 1000 million people?
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by RamaY »

Sachin wrote: I am not batting for Tanaji, but my take would be to;
1. continue to use the existing system of passports. Let the passport issue procedure have all the steps as it has now, and computerise it so that it becomes faster (TCS is already working on that).
2. issue a Bharatiya Rail 2nd Class A/C Travel Warrant for Mr.Nandan Nilekani from NDLS to SBC, and ask him to pack his bags and move back to Infosys.
AWMTA

I said this on Jun 30th
All those problems you mentioned can/will happen with National ID too. If the purpose of National ID is to have unique ID, then it is more useful to issue Passports for all citizens.
A 10 yr passport cost ~Rs 3,000 now and it will be effective to issue passports to all citizens as it would bring the unit cost down to ~Rs 1,000.

Prior to that on June 6th
krishnan wrote:Cost estimate puts it around rupees 50 per card .
That would be a gross miscalculation. IMO by the time the user gets a functional National ID card and can integrate it with other GOI functions, forget about what non govt entities such as banks have to do, The cost would be minimum 1000 Rs per card.

If they estimate for and plan for another Voter-id card type project, then this project is already failed.

Like someone said above, if people see this as just a IT-vity project, then they are short sighted. I hope they think thru the purpose, stakeholders, policy interdependencies, system/business interoperability, operational infrastructure, end-user usage climate and usage patterns, physical as well as electronic security, identity-theft, and fail over and disaster recovery systems.
And my plan of action presented on Jun 29th
I envision this project to take 10 years (minimum) with the following methodology:

1. Individual applying for it (similar to how we do for Driver’s license in the US), and get a photo-id in 1-2 minutes. Such a system will make sure that mistakes are avoided in Name/Pic type of information. A centralized database will collate and compare the info such as bio-metrics to weed out any duplicates and inconsistencies.

2. Banks/Govt organizations/Phone-companies/Driver’s-License etc key functions are asked to integrate with the NID system. Look how long it is taking for PAN-id to Bank-A/c integration to get an idea. Force the users to show the NID. Open NID counters in Each Bank/GovtOffice, and make sure that these NID Booths cross-check the info (especially bio-metrics) with local database before printing the card.

3. If a card is found to be fraudulent/duplicate/non-unique then the card number is deactivated and all bank-transaction/phone-connections become inactive immediately. This will force the user to go to cross check the info and get a new ID (in 1 hr). This process continues till the user gets a valid NID.

4. I have allocated Rs 10,000 cr per year for 10 years for this program in my shadow budget. National ID Program (100 croresx1000Rs for card/systems/infra) (10,000)

I expect at least 10-20% duplicate/fraud/incorrect entries in the first 5 years. As the system matures and is integrated with other key social-supply programs such as Civil-Supplies (Ration cards), Voting, Bank Loans, Farm Subsidies, Land/Asset registration, Bank Transactions, Telephone connections this number can be brought down to less than 1% within 10 years.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by sinha »

Too much heat - give the poor guy a break to atleast put something in motion

a) Mixing an expirable travel document no with lifelong identity no is a bad idea. And the fact that we dont have e-Passport till now is a different story. expecting all Indians esp Poor to hold/apply for passport is impossible. People using Passport Infrastructure should understand that there is no **real** biometric de-duplication and analytics till much later date, and right now there is very little stopping 1 individual getting multiple passports. And TCS is not going to like a planned 50 million database grow 20 folds - they aint using any technology to handle that level of dedup.

b) The scheme has a mandate for financial inclusion with right to identity - expecting it to solve all problems is not going to happen asap.

c) Voluntary vs compulasory in txns - citizenship act has been amended for compulsory registration. Ensuring "registrars" and service agencies ask for or enroll for UID will take time - remember this elephant moves slowly and "democratically".

d) wait for Vittal commitee's enrollment process to come out before you pass judgements on how easy/difficult it will be for illegals to get registered.


Having had meeting with him on security aspects, I can confirm that the under suitable legal framework the trace on UID will allow all authentication attempts (1:1) to be logged with location [ it will be delivered through single print reader and mobile phone] and 1:n search of chance prints/suspect prints will be allowed.


RamaY
I am curious ....
which technology will complete the whole process of collecting biometric prints and comparing it against a billion 10 prints and confirm no duplicates and print the card in 2 minutes? Please let me know....And how many bio modes are u talking about?

second part (except local database part which is confusing) is pretty much what UIDAI has been talking about - they are using the word "registrars"
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by RamaY »

Sinha ji.

If you visited a DMV in massaland, they have these Xerox machine size ID card printers which spit out a photo-id card along with your finger print information on them in 5-10 minutes. This costs them ~$10-15 == Rs 500 – 700.

My idea is this. Each geographical location (Say district level) will have a regional database (or register). When you visit a UID center for a new ID, they will check some of your existing documentation, such as voter ID, ration card, telephone bill, pan-card etc, and will take your bio-metric info (finger prints, EyeRis) and run a quick check against the regional database (~10M records) and generate a unique ID and give it to you. This is a pull-process where the individual goes to the center and seeks a unique id. If properly build, we can build these kiosks and set them up at major banks and govt offices, similar to e-seva center concept adopted in AP.

Additional bio-metric information such as blood group etc will be build as the system evolves.

State level and Central command centers will not do the real-time check of these id cards. They will be running in batches to compare these ID information and weed out the duplicate cards.

As a punishment for seeking a duplicate card, the individual will lose telephone connectivity, power connectivity (if possible), locking all bank accounts etc, when a duplicate entry is found in the system. And the individual has to pay for the reprocessing fee of Rs 1000. In the second round he/she has to go to the nearest authorized center to provide a positive confirmation of his/her ID against the state level system.

That said;

Irrespective of what type of system is developed, the potential system should be build to hold more than 5 billion records (to accommodate duplicates, deaths and births over next 50 years) and this technology is already available. I have worked on systems of this size (credit card systems, and retail systems) and the technology is easily available.
Asit P
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Asit P »

Come on guys, let us not get cynical here. UID card is just a process and not the end of all our woos. I guess few of us are expecting a bit too much from this project in a small span of time. I will try to address two questions which many of us have in mind:-

Are there any shortcomings in the introduction of this card?
Yes there are few shortcomings attached with the introduction of this card. UID card will be given to every Indian citizen. This means any one in India who holds a ration card, voter's id, passport, gas connection, pan card etc would be entitled to this card. And we all know that lot of Bangladeshis do have one or more than one such documents. So all of them will end up getting this card.


What are the benefits of this card?
Benefits are immense. There are many people in our country who hold multiple/fake pan cards, passports, ration cards, voters id card etc. All these documents are used for evading tax, terrorism and for executing other corrupt practises. But since the national id card will be a biometric card. So it will not be duplicated. The next question, that might come to our mind is - why can't this card be duplicated? Answer is simple. It cannot be duplicated because every card will contain our biometric data which will go into a central database. If some one tries to get a duplicate card issued for himself, then the government authorities will take his biometric details and will match it with the records of the central database. And if his details are found to be matching with any record of the central database, then they will be able to make out that the person is trying to get a duplicate card issued for himself. Thus he will be caught Red handed.

After some time, all our documents such as Pan card, Passport, driving licence etc will get linked to our national Id card. And since no individual will be holding more than one national Id card (as it cannot be duplicated), therefore this will help us flush out all the fake/duplicate documents. This would bring a great change in our country. It will bring down the number of bogus voting which takes place owing to multiple voters id card. No criminal will be able to run out of the country on fake passports. No one will be able to take the government subsidies on food and fuel by using duplicate/multiple ration cards, and so on.

This system is new and has not yet been implemented therefore now anyone of any age who holds any document proving him to be a citizen of India will be given this card. But after the successful introduction of this system, in future the government will make it mandatory to have this card right since our birth. They will also make it mandatory to show and quote the national id card number, every time an individual wants to get any document (pan card, ration card, voters id etc) made for himself. Right now the Bangladeshis come to India and they end up getting a ration card or other documents by using their connections. But in future they will have to quote their national id card number to get these documents, and since they have not been staying in India since their birth. So naturally they won't be having this. Thus the introduction of this card will ensure that in future, no illegal Bangladeshi ends up becoming the legal citizen of India.

Apart from this, the national ID card will turn out to be a great boon for the cops. If they find an anonymous dead body or if they kill a criminal in encounter, then they will easily be able to identify the person by taking a biometric sample of the person and matching the same with the national database.

Towards a later stage, government will make it mandatory to quote our national id card number for most of the transactions such as buying a car, taking a mobile/internet connection, buying guns etc. So if a cop is suspecting a person to be involved into a particular crime, all what he will need to do is to put the national id card number of the person in his computer, and he will end up getting the historic details of all the transactions done by the person. Apart from this, he will also end up getting other details of the person such as his address, his family members, past criminal records etc. All these will help him get to the root of the case and it will also help him in collecting more evidence against the accused.

Thus if implemented properly, this system will turn out to be a boon for our country.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Sachin »

Asit P wrote:But since the national id card will be a biometric card. So it will not be duplicated.
Has this been highighted else where? Or is that your understanding that the card would be a biometric card. Also there were talks about piloting this whole scheme in one or two states. Guess, that would give us a benchmark as to what this card actually is.

I feel people are only getting cynical with the contradictory statements coming out once too often :).
vera_k
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by vera_k »

It is not going to be a physical card, but a number. The number will be associated with biometric information stored with the government.

Nilekani said, "Our project will provide a unique identification (UID) number, not a card.

Other documents like passports, ration cards, driving licenses and such will have to be updated to refer to the unique id at a future date.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Dileep »

Rahul Mehta wrote: So Yes Tanaji, I agree with you that NID is scam. So now let me ask you my patent-cum-USP question : what solution do you propose? :rotfl: :mrgreen:
Go to Talati's office, pay Rs 2 and.., you know, the works!

If the focus is on the NREGS recepients and the likes, the passport, bank kiosk, telephone connection, etc will not work. The ONLY thing that would work is "you need to go, q-up and register at the VO to get NREGS payments" line. The next sure bet is the election registration. The rest doesn't work with them.

It maybe a scam, but I think a database-only UID is fine as an idea.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by sinha »

RamaY wrote: That said;Irrespective of what type of system is developed, the potential system should be build to hold more than 5 billion records (to accommodate duplicates, deaths and births over next 50 years) and this technology is already available. I have worked on systems of this size (credit card systems, and retail systems) and the technology is easily available.
RamaY sir, with due respect, do you do biometric deduplication with credit card and retail systems - we rely on textual / name / address / and other identity dedups using Jaro winkler/ edit distance/ specialized name address dbs etc. Purely in terms of biometrics, the specialists tell me that largest civilian database which run multi-modal biometric deduplications have never reached beyond 150-250 million subjects.

On your point of doing local deduplication check, what my sources tell me is that a pilot was asked for by three state run PSU which required a laptop running the fp software to dedup 10k to 20k subject which were supposed to be the "local" subjects - but "aquisition problems" caused in not to work. This is much easily acomplished with 2-d ICAO complaint face recognition.

I beleive this idea was discussed, and will be implemented- and there were camps split - some insisting that one visit will do the job for most poor folks and why make them come again to get a card, whereas the other camp held the view that it even if there are 0.05% duplicates (wilful), tracking them and calling them again and nullifying their ID no does not make sense. Lets see which way it goes - technically doesnt make a difference.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Tanaji »

a) Mixing an expirable travel document no with lifelong identity no is a bad idea. And the fact that we dont have e-Passport till now is a different story. expecting all Indians esp Poor to hold/apply for passport is impossible. People using Passport Infrastructure should understand that there is no **real** biometric de-duplication and analytics till much later date, and right now there is very little stopping 1 individual getting multiple passports. And TCS is not going to like a planned 50 million database grow 20 folds - they aint using any technology to handle that level of dedup.
I am curious why this is a bad idea? Even the lifelong identity document MUST be revokable , this is standard security practice, you never issue something that you cannot revoke. So in that sense, there is a chance that the document can be of limited duration. Also, why is it impossible to expect poor to apply for a passport? We are expecting them to apply for a UID, so it is the same thing?

Note that I am not saying everyone gets the passport, it is just that we use the same passport infrastructure and process to issue the document, which may be credit card sized and of a different format than the passport. I dont see the point of duplicating infrastructure when the UID mandate is NOT to solve the 2 main issues facing us which is illegal immigration issue and one number for all government databases.

It seems to me that the UID guys are asking for thousands of crores, and there is no real benefit to be gained out of it. We still have the problem of illegals and more importantly the issue that every government babu department will demand its own unique identifier. So even after spending the money, net impact to user is marginal. How do you think you will sell this to a family of 4: Hey look, you need to pay Rs.200-500 to get this card = Rs. 800 - 2000 for the family. You wont be able to do much with it though... you cant use it to file your taxes, you cant use it to get a passport, and oh even the illegal Bangladeshi Aslam from the slum will have one if he wants....
The scheme has a mandate for financial inclusion with right to identity
Could you please expand on this, I didnt really get this point.
Voluntary vs compulasory in txns
Again, this is a government mandate in the offing, it is not really a point in "favor" of the UID. It could very well be the passport number.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by vera_k »

Tanaji wrote:It seems to me that the UID guys are asking for thousands of crores, and there is no real benefit to be gained out of it. We still have the problem of illegals and more importantly the issue that every government babu department will demand its own unique identifier.
The problem of illegals is a political problem. Take the case of the USA - a UID exists, but illegals exist alongside because politicians see them as a way to grow their constituency. The only solution to this problem is to control the borders and to electorally punish any politician who sees the illegals as a constituency. After the UID is put in place, this will become easier as getting a UID would presumably be controlled by the Central government and would be far harder than getting a ration card issued by the local legislator.

I am skeptical about a proper implementation of the UID on this front only because the Left has historically seen illegals as a constituency and thus there will be huge pressure on Nilekani to make compromises on the implementation from within the government.
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by Tanaji »

Vera_K

Yes, illegals are a political problem. The issue is of ensuring that a UID card is not given to an illegal. Nilekani is on record saying that his organisation will NOT be performing the check. That is the gripe I have, which means that using UID as a means to detect illegals is lost.
vera_k
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Re: The Indian National ID Card Project

Post by vera_k »

^^^

I am saying that the issue was lost when the UPA was elected.
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