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.

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