Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

The Indian biometric project is not unique in its aims nor scope to uniquely identify its population, simply the technology used to generate an ID.

In the U.S. we have SSNs (social security numbers) and driver's licences. India is rolling out a 21st century answer to the problem of uniquely identifying its population with technology to minimise the probability of false, duplicate, or un-recoverable identities being created.

The technology gives the Indian government the ability to "track" its citizens no further than the American government can "track" hers through their SSN-linked bank accounts, cell phones, and government office activity. In a nut shell, the technology hashes an individual's iris and fingerprints into an ID, allowing for the ID to be easily verified in a de-centralised manner. In contrast, verifying a U.S. ID requires patching in to a centralised database.

Can an iris scan and fingerprint be faked? Of course. But I'm not sure who's arguing for the security of U.S. identity cards given that a stroll through Greenwich Village will afford me multiple solicitations for fake IDs.

Ignore even the problems of having a democracy where you don't know who your citizens are nor if nor how many times they've voted and think about how difficult it would be for an individual with no verifiable identity to enter into a long-term contract. Would you give him a mortgage? Or a loan to plant his fields? Knowing well that if he doesn't feel like paying you back he can change the name he goes by and you won't know the wiser? On the other side, if you're a government official who knows nobody knows how many people are in your district, wouldn't you feel less comfortable embezzling funds from intended recipients if they had a way of proving they never received their handout?

Am I the only one who is wondering how this comment ended up on top of this discussion?

The argument seems highly problematic. How far is a government allowed to go "to minimise the probability of false, duplicate, or un-recoverable identities". Let us pretend for a moment, that these are indeed core issues, that justify a billion dollar project.

If a government is allowed to intrude personal freedom just because the technology is there, why don't we make caring a gps tracking device mandatory for everyone leaving their registered residence. I mean, it is keeping the streets save, right? What gives a government the right to demand from someone fingerprints and iris scans, but not demand the GPS tracking or mandatory DNA samples of every citizen.

If we go on and just lament that this is just how it is and government has to keep the streets clean, these steps are consequential. After all a few decades ago nobody cared about fingerprints, and it was purely some crime-fighting technique. And so are DNA samples and monitoring anklets today.

U.S.'s tracing abilities given in the example based bank accounts or cell phones are voluntary, i.e. I can take a bag of cash and a throw away phone and government agencies would have to put substantial manpower into keeping track of my actions. With the iris scan, all they need to do is have a high resolution camera installed at the front of the store and they know where I spend that money.

"just because the technology is there"

The Indian government isn't collecting biometrics for fun. Every government, particularly democracies and those with social spending, need to know (a) who is in their country, and, (b) said individuals can reliably prove their identity. Instead of filing forms and pictures in a centralised database the Indian government has opted to generate unique IDs hashed from biometrics.

"What gives a government the right to demand from someone fingerprints and iris scans, but not demand the GPS tracking or mandatory DNA samples of every citizen."

Slippery slope fallacy. By this logic any potential for data collection is totalitarian. Note that to gain U.S. residency (or, for that matter, work at a U.S. financial institution) I had to give my fingerprints to the FBI.

"With the iris scan, all they need to do is have a high resolution camera"

Facial recognition technology would be easier, cheaper, and as technologically inaccessible as planting high resolution cameras looking at peoples' irises everywhere.

"reliably prove their identity"

What is the relationship between the level of reliability and the ability to provide democratic government and social support? Obviously democracy does not demand 100% reliable identification, if only because many countries with governments based on democratic principles do not require 100% reliable proof of identify in order to vote, participate in government, etc.

(Nor am I suggesting that you think it's 100% - this is a rhetorical point only.)

Historically, the case of Clarence Henry Willcock in the UK is relevant. The National Registration Act 1939 re-introduced compulsory identification cards. The practice extended after the war ended. In 1950, Willcock refused to present his card, saying "I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing". While the courts upheld the decision and fine, public opinion was against that level of identity checking, and the policy was scrapped in 1952. In part too because of the cost.

So we have the case of a democratic system, with social care programs, which seemingly decreased their ability to identify people reliably.

Denmark is another example of a country, widely accepted as having both a democratic system and high social services, which doesn't have a highly reliable identity system.

So it does not seem that what you are saying is essentially true, and it is possible for a democratic government to have high social support systems without having a reliable method to prove their identity - at least, no more reliable than we had 100 years ago.

Reliably proving your identity becomes very important in India due to the vastness of the population and the number of subsidies earmarked for the under-privileged. Subsidies aside, reliably identifying someone guarantees their right to suffrage. Umpteen columns of newsprint are devoted each election year to voter fraud - people go to their designated election office to cast their vote but are turned away because they have "already voted". Having a reliable way to identify an individual will reduce the occurrence of these activities, if not totally eliminate them.

I have railed about the corruption in India in earlier posts and comments. That the government has green-lighted a project that leverages India's strength in IT to actually help its citizens is a departure from the norm, and is worth lauding. It remains to be seen if this will actually be implemented once the current government's term runs out.

I was speaking to the broad generalization of JumpCrisscross who said that "Every government" needs to do this, for the sake of good democracy and social services. I disputed that broad generalization. Nothing I wrote should be construed to apply specifically for or against India.

As to voter fraud, of that I know only about the US. There is a handful of voter fraud in the US, and almost no in-person voter fraud at all[1]. What fraud there is is mostly via the absentee ballot. We had a long history of election fraud and vote rigging in the US, but little of that was due to the inability to reliably prove one's identity.

([1] When you vote, you sign your name to a registry, which is publicly reviewable. This biometric identifier is sufficient to detect, after the fact, if there is significant in-person fraud. This has not been demonstrated, despite a strong desire by some to show that it exists.)

Denmark has a national personal identification number [1] and a reliable land registry system. The UK has had the latter in modern history. A democracy with social welfare programmes could theoretically exist without a reliable identification system, but one would expect that to lower systemic efficiency and barriers to fraudn and corruption.

The nut of my argument is that the Indian system is not substantially more instrusive than photograph + address based systems used in the developed world. Hence, the emotional backlash against the Indian project should not be held independently from identification programmes around the world.

[1] http://www.cpr.dk/cpr/site.aspx?p=303

That link says "SIDEN KAN IKKE FINDES" - "the page cannot be found."

Yes, Denmark has a personal number. What are the biometrics tying that number to the person? It's a signature.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_document#Denmark . "Denmark is one of few EU countries that currently do not issue national identity cards...", "National Health Insurance Card ... has no photo of the holder", "Danish drivers' licenses and passports are the only identity cards issued by the government containing both the personal identification number and a photo" but foreigners resident in the country who don't have driving skills (but notably are entitled to the social care system) can't get either one.

Then look for images of a Sundhedskort and you'll see there's only space for a signature on the back. No chip, no photo, nothing else.

Again my question to you is, what additional level of assurance do we need in order to have and maintain a democratic form of government with a strong social care system? I assert that signatures - which are a form of biometrics - and perhaps an identification number are more than sufficient for most countries.

(I again say that I know little about the situation in India. It may be that my views are only applicable to certain countries.)

Take voting as the main point. If you need to present stronger proof of the right to vote in order to vote, then what form would that be? An identity card? Then what happens if you've lost the card, or it was stolen or confiscated - have you lost the right to vote in a given election? What if you are unable to provide the needed documents to establish that stronger evidence, as is the problem of Viviette Applewhite, Wilola Lee, Grover Freeland, and others in Pennsylvania? Or should we use fingerprint and/or retina biometrics as in the linked article on India?

How much fraud and distrust in the voting system will the extra evidence remove, and what is the financial cost? Isn't existing fraud rather small, and less than to common-place problems during voting, like http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/2004... where votes were lost due to missing information about machine limitations? "Counting Votes 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness" reports that "More than 300 voting machine problems were reported to election protection hotlines during the 2010 mid-term elections, and more than 1800 were reported during the 2008 general election."

I quite frankly don't see our democratic principles on shaky ground, in need of stronger assurances of citizen identification in order to stabilize it. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Please clarify how reliable government-issued ID impacts personal freedom. You're making an awfully big leap here.

This argument seems to be based on an assumption of the right to anonymously take out loans, make bank transactions, and conduct business with the government. That right simply doesn't exist. People don't have a right to passable fake ID either, which is all this system really prevents.

Requiring ID for activities that shouldn't require it (prepaid cell phones, flight, all electronic forms of US dollars) is an invasion of privacy. Having more secure ID for activities that do isn't.

>Please clarify how reliable government-issued ID impacts personal freedom. You're making an awfully big leap here.

Is he? It is obvious that the government amassing all the more data for it's citizens impacts personal freedom, from privacy, to dissident control, to squashing protest movements etc etc.

People make the assumptions that current governments are the be all end all, and something like a mass protest moment and/or revolution will never again be necessary to change them. Even if that was true for the US, how about in places like India or thinly-veiled dictatorships all around the world?

>This argument seems to be based on an assumption of the right to anonymously take out loans, make bank transactions, and conduct business with the government. That right simply doesn't exist.

No right "exists" (in nature). Rights are not god-given, they are what the citizens of a country can demand of their government and what the political forces in play can negotiate for them. The right to anonymously make whatever transactions is as valid as any other right if it's fought for and won. And a few decades ago, before prevalent credit cards, it was not a right someone would defend, it was what everybody assumed to be the normal situation, unlike nowadays where almost all financial transactions are tracked and catalogued.

> It is obvious that the government amassing all the more data for it's citizens impacts personal freedom, from privacy, to dissident control, to squashing protest movements etc etc.

It may be obvious to you, but that's a pretty handwavy dismissal. Once again, please explain how a government knowing biographical/demographical information about its population impacts personal freedom (or more importantly, how reliable identification impacts personal freedom in a way that unreliable identification does not).

>And a few decades ago, before prevalent credit cards, it was not a right someone would defend, it was what everybody assumed to be the normal situation, unlike nowadays where almost all financial transactions are tracked and catalogued.

Tracking and cataloging financial transactions is not just an integral function of a bank, it's the definition of a bank. The term "bank account" long predates credit cards, and for a reason: banks keep track of the money you've put in and taken out, and what they've done with that money inbetween.

Old school, small town banks identified people by gasp facial recognition; it's just that their facial recognition happened to be manual. And if the bank manager didn't know your family, you were probably out of luck. Reliable government-issued identification made credit available to people who don't have "roots" in any particular community.

It is never and was never good business to make a loan to someone (accept a "promise to pay") without a means of extracting that "promise to pay" should the debtor choose to break it. If you're going to make the outlandish claim that one could anonymously take out a loan before the advent of the database, you're going to need to prove it.

>It may be obvious to you, but that's a pretty handwavy dismissal. Once again, please explain how a government knowing biographical/demographical information about its population impacts personal freedom

Once again? It has been explained in extenso by history. Every oppressive regime or bureaucracy works by gathering biographical/demographical information about people. Ask senator McCarthy or J.E. Hoover.

If you think you're safe because you're an ordinary citizen, then you might be right --it's not about ho-hum, average Joes. It's about people that are agents of change, from MLK to union leaders, to gay rights activists, and what have you. Heck, even John Lennon, a mere singer, had a huge FBI file. Those are used to track their moves and in many cases entrap them.

Even an improvement in the way the government tracks crime impacts personal freedom. An example: imagine drug laws being able to be enforced 100% and with perfect tracking of individuals. Half the population would be in jail, including perfectly functional teens and adults. No "stoner rock" for you, no sixties hippie communes, Cheech and Chong or Timothy Leary. Not even Henry Miller, Velvet Underground and of course no Grateful Dead. Heck, even a certain Jobs could have ended up in some jailhouse, not to mention most CEOs with their cocaine habits.

(or more importantly, how reliable identification impacts personal freedom in a way that unreliable identification does not).

Reliable identification means the government has the (potential) power to know where everybody is, all the time. Do I really have to explain the consequences of this? Your whereabouts used to be considered parts of your PRIVACY --in fact for the police to follow you around and/or wiretap you required a court order.

>Tracking and cataloging financial transactions is not just an integral function of a bank, it's the definition of a bank. The term "bank account" long predates credit cards, and for a reason: banks keep track of the money you've put in and taken out, and what they've done with that money inbetween.

We're not taking about them "keeping track of the money you've put in and taken out, and what they've done with that money inbetween" --rather, we're discussing about them keeping track of what YOU HAVE done with that money, which is something else altogether. My bank has no reason to know I bought a XXL-Vibrator 3000 or that I like to read Firefly fan finction.

>Old school, small town banks identified people by gasp facial recognition; it's just that their facial recognition happened to be manual.

The same thing can have very different consequences once it can be automated and obtain far more reach and capability. Think papyrus vs the printing press. So, no, the fact that "facial recognition" was also used in small towns is not the same as the ability to real-time track, index, catalogue and store people and their movements nation-wide.

>Every oppressive regime or bureaucracy works by gathering biographical/demographical information about people. Ask senator McCarthy or J.E. Hoover.

McCarthy's information was patently false, and J.E. Hoover went far, far beyond biographical data. There is a difference between your address and the conversations that take place inside it.

>imagine drug laws being able to be enforced 100% and with perfect tracking of individuals.

This has nothing to do with ID. I can only assume you're talking about mandatory drug testing, which is driven primarily by the social-conservative leadership of businesses rather than government (except when the GOP wins mandatory drug testing in order to receive welfare). The contents of one's bloodstream are and should continue to be private. Whether this information is in distributed or centralized storage isn't relevant; it should never be collected in the first place.

>It's about people that are agents of change, from MLK to union leaders, to gay rights activists, and what have you. Heck, even John Lennon, a mere singer, had a huge FBI file. Those are used to track their moves and in many cases entrap them.

The FBI would have surveilled prominent civil rights activists whether or not they carried ID cards. Dr. King's demographic information was on the front pages of newspapers. COINETELPRO et al violated civil liberties by listening to private conversations and making death threats. Reading the paper and knowing King's name and face wasn't a violation of privacy; bugging his hotel rooms was.

Also, take a look at his FBI file sometime, if you haven't already. Included are dozens of letters from citizens to the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, thanking and congratulating the Bureau for pursuing what they considered a dangerous and evil man. Good old red-blooded "law and order" American conservatism was responsible for surveillance of activists; their drivers licenses had little to do with it.

>--rather, we're discussing about them keeping track of what YOU HAVE done with that money, which is something else altogether. My bank has no reason to know I bought a XXL-Vibrator 3000 or that I like to read Firefly fan finction.

This particular "tracking" was brought on entirely by the free market. Credit cards are held by willing consumers and accepted by willing merchants. Bitcoin presents a fascinating opportunity to escape this disadvantage of credit cards.

That doesn't change the fact that I want the power to securely prove my identity.

Nobody is talking about requiring biometric identification at the bookstore, and I'd be just as opposed to that as you. India is giving its citizens the ability to prove their identities to the government should they choose to seek government assistance. Unless the Indian government should hand out money to whoever asks for it, as many times as they ask for it?

Indian govt, like any other, provides a lot of subsidy to the needed. They have some programs and funds to do this. However, most of the funds don't reach people who need them. Why - too many middlemen, corruption, etc. Through this program they are trying to cut the middlemen or at least hoping to. Most other forms of ids can be faked, these possible in Bond movies but difficult in India.

No, not really.

1) never forget Indian ingenuity to break systems. Jugaad is the proper term.

2) the data itself is being faked already. In this thread there is a first hand account of people going to villages and making duplicate UID cards. 2 separate cards for each hand.

3) data has already been lost and stolen

4)overlaps. The current system already has some thing like 1 million to .1 million overlaps from one set of calculations I recall. On top of that you have overlap everytime a new generation gets added to the database.

Do you want to be the person with a faulty card in india? Do you want to see what happens to poor people who have no access to the net?

As always, if you downvote, do let people know why.

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