Aadhar India: The future or the end it leads privacy to.

What is AADHAR India?
It is unique centralized identification system that assigns a number which is verified by the user’s biometrics, iris and picture. Over 1.2 billion Indians of all age groups have registered in this scheme which is driven by the government. This number is being linked to almost every transaction and government document in India through large scale promotions and warnings. Is the card actually helpful or is it just the end of privacy, let’s find out.

As, per my research the following are the most valuable insights:

Merits of Aadhar:

1. Direct subsidy transfer to the beneficiary in all government schemes as, the bank account is linked to the aadhar. This reduces corruption as it takes the middlemen out of the picture. E.g. subsidies, monthly pension, etc.
2. Aadhar acts as an all in one KYC document which reduces the lengthy procedures of availing government documents and licenses like Passport, voter ID, etc.
3. Issues of name and addresses would no longer exist in the long run. That is, most of the times before the aadhar, people would have different name, surnames, parents names, etc on their documents which would cause a lot of applications of change of names. Since the aadhar is now linked to majority of the documents, such issues would become a history in a few years.
4. Makes online application easier thanks to the e-KYC feature of the aadhar system.
5. Even though there have been security breaches in the aadhar system multiple number of times, it is still the most advanced and well maintained government document.
6. Most importantly the governing body of Aadhar i.e. UIDAI acts as a body upon which the citizens can put the burden of protecting their data so, they could have someone to blame.

Demerits of Aadhar:

1. Before the aadhar came into existence, information and data was still centralized but aadhar has found a way to centralize an already centralized set of data. Making the job of professional hackers.
2. The UIDAI governs aadhar which is a set of humans and any time a human is involved, there is a factor of trust that comes up. With trust comes the factors like corruption. The amount of damage this could cause is unimaginable and is only limited to the thought of the corrupt individuals attached to this.
3. The worst probably is that most of the technical aspects of UID is outsourced to other countries. Well, if the work was to be done by an Indian at least patriotism would hold them back from doing the wrong thing.

My suggestion, I believe that aadhar is a great platform and makes governance easier. But, the issue is that it is CENTRALIZED. As a citizen of India, we are fully aware that our country is suffering from poverty and that our government spends a lot in abolishing that, but it does not reach the beneficiary. Imagine a DECENTRALIZED aadhar network wherein each individual decides what his/her data would be used for. If used, the customer would be paid in a nationalized cryptocurrency which is mined by Indian miners (Another employment scheme). What I believe is that the world and the economy could be compared to a pendulum. Initially people had their power in their own hands and then centralization came in and now people want their freedom back.