Fix it, Don't Abandon it

As it becomes mandatory to link Aadhar to more and more things (though real estate continues to be the exception, the elephant in the room), Airtel’s decision to sneakily link Aadhar data obtained from its mobile subscribers to create accounts in Airtel Payments Bank has drawn fire. And rightly so.

This Deccan Herald editorial describes what happened:
“Its (Airtel’s) mobile app had a pre-checked box, and if the customer did not uncheck it her consent for creating a payments bank wallet using mobile KYC was assumed. It was an easy method of customer acquisition but amounted to fraud and showed the danger of misuse of personal data when it falls into private hands.”
Next, a flaw in the Aadhar rules was discovered as a result of this incident:
“Many direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme payments like LPG subsidies go into the accounts to which Aadhaar was last linked, rather than to beneficiaries' regular accounts.”
Fortunately, this is one of those rare instances where the government reacted promptly to change the rules:
“The government has now amended the rules on payment of subsidies, and they will no longer be transferred to the latest Aadhaar-linked bank account.”

But where I disagree with the editorial is its conclusion that personal data cannot be trusted with the government, let alone private players. And therefore:
“The government should rethink its policy of linking Aadhaar to everything.”
To me, that is just throwing the baby with the bathwater. Yes, the system has its flaws. Yes, there will be the expected teething problems. Yes, we will stumble along as we try to get it right. But isn’t this system better than the corrupt, middleman infested system that we had for the last so many decades?

Besides, doesn’t America, a country with an inherent mistrust of all things government, use its Aadhar equivalent, the Social Security Number for everything? That means the US has found its benefits far outweigh the abuses and risks. Surely, we should pursue and tweak the Aadhar system instead of calls for abandoning it every time we run into a problem or misuse…

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarDecember 28, 2017 at 9:15 AM

    While Aadhar-like core ID needs to provide the fundamental link to many issues, as the blog says all the teething troubles and later troubles which will also be there have to be meticulously addressed. That need not worry us because either through prompt or lethargic actions governments in democratic land like ours cannot escape gross negligence. It costs the political parties finally and our netas are politically clever.

    About the cynicism on Aadhar use: To ensure that gross misuse will not occur, it is better to have a voice, to some extent. Nobody does self-regulation in today's circumstances, hence it is better to just tolerate some level of overdoing it. Everybody thinks extremes these days, so how can we even expect media to be different? These don't seem to be the days of decorum and willingness to maintain limits. Survival of the fittest is the ubiquitous law, for which aggression is the most effective (that is what people seem to believe)!

    About Congress only being believed as corrupt, it has been found that all parties are the same. If BJP rules for 50 years, people will start saying exactly what we say about Congress today. I don't belong to or support any one party, so I am not inclined to have delusion in this regard.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why we Deceive Ourselves

In their book, The Elephant in the Brain , the authors describe this weird aspect of deception that we practice: deceiving ourselves! That is so weird: “If our minds contain maps of our worlds, what good comes from having an inaccurate version of these maps?” The Sigmund Freud school of thought treats self-deception as a defense mechanism, “a way for the ego to protect itself”. The mind seeks to protect itself from anxiety and other negative emotions. Many object to this reasoning: since accurate information is so critical to our survival, surely distorting information would be dangerous. Wouldn’t the goal of protecting our self-esteem have been better achieved by making the brain’s self-esteem mechanism stronger instead? The new school of thought explains self-deception as “primarily outward-facing, manipulative, and ultimately self-serving”. This is based on Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory: “In a variety of scenarios, limiting or sabotaging yourself is the winn...
Read more

Europe #3 - Innsbruck

The last city we visited in Europe was Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. After the cold and windy experience (at times) of Paris and Netherlands, Innsbruck was a wonderful change – it didn’t feel that cold, it was not windy all of which made it easy to walk around. Something absolutely necessary given how scenic the place is.   Since the hotel check-in time was much later in the day, we left the baggage and went to the Swarovski HQ-cum-museum about an hour by bus from Innsbruck. The crystal exhibits were brilliant – colorful, bright, shiny. Jewellery aside, it was a display of what one can do with crystals. While my wife and daughter loved the jewellery, I liked the superhero themed exhibits of Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, and Star Wars. We didn’t buy anything there, though we did buy stuff in the Swarovski store in Innsbruck – jewellery, not the superhero stuff.   Innsbruck is a major tourist attraction during the skiing season but now in summer, we saw many groups of ...
Read more

The Thrill of the Chase

So many people complain about the difficulty in making decisions while shopping. Do you buy Brand X that gives 20% extra free? Or Brand Y that has 10% off? Or Brand Z that gives something else free with it? Do you buy that flat screen TV today or wait for the sale at Diwali? Now since the customer is king, shouldn’t companies be simplifying pricing choices? Like maybe offering consistently low prices all the time? Not so fast, as the US store, JC Penney discovered to its cost. Turns out that while people do complain about pricing choices, they are irrational. Also, they enjoy the thrill of the chase. Huh? The word “sale” acts like a siren call for many people: it lures them in to make that purchase. Consistently low prices don’t do the same. Besides, if a competitor lowers their prices just one time of the year, and Poof! Suddenly that low price claim becomes suspect in shoppers’ eyes. Then there are those sites that offer coupons: have lunch at Restaurant A on Wedne...
Read more