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Comment by programmer_dude | Hacker News Reader

An Aadhar card is just an identity document. You don't have to get one if you don't want any benefits linked to it. Just use some other ID.

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Having a bank account from a non-government entity is not a benefit provided by the government. Yet, the government has issued notifications to link all bank accounts with Aadhaar or have the accounts indefinitely suspended.

Having a mobile number from a non-government entity is not a benefit provided by the government. Yet, the government's Department of Telecom (DoT) issued a notification asking all telcos to verify their subscribers using Aadhaar.

There are many other cases where the government has blatantly violated the Supreme Court orders that Aadhaar shall remain voluntary and that nobody shall be denied a benefit for want of having it.

And I agree with you this is overreaching and people must oppose this. Watering down the requirements for Aadhar is not a good solution.

Is this like the US and the SSN, which was originally only meant for social security, but is now used for anything and everything and many systems require it if you want to do business at all, even though the business isn't related to social security at all?

It's slightly similar, but a lot more dangerous since it has biometrics attached to it (ten fingerprints and two iris scans). There are no data privacy laws in India, and if someone faces misuse or loss or harm caused by this, they cannot even sue the other party because the legal act (Aadhaar Act) gives the right to sue only to the issuing authority (UIDAI). And UIDAI has a very poor track record of punishing the criminals and instead goes after those who point to flaws in the system.

There are already "benefit" cards like LPG card, ration card, BPL card, etc to get those benefits. Why bother with Aadhar then? The answer is, consolidation. Aadhar is meant to be the identity card. I don't want to carry big passport book, etc. wherever I go.

Yeah I agree and understand what you are saying but this does not contradict what I said earlier in any way.

PAN card and Drivers license already works, bank passbook all works as identitification document. You don't need passport for that.

That consolidation, when combined with biometrics, means you can never get it replaced. Your only recourse to identity theft with your biometrics, or the fact that biometric error rates are very high, is to just live with it.

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