“The setting up of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a major step in improving governance with regard to delivery of public services. This project is very close to my heart. I am happy to note that this project also marks the beginning of an era where the top private sector talent in India steps forward to take the responsibility for implementing projects of vital national importance. The UIDAI will set up an online data base with identity and biometric details of Indian residents and provide enrolment and verification services across the country. The first set of unique identity numbers will be rolled out in 12 to 18 months. I have proposed a provision of Rs.120 crore for this project.”
-Para 64, Union Budget Speech 2009-10 by Pranab Mukherjee, as Finance Minister
UIDAI is entrusted with certain roles and responsibilities, which includes defining "mechanisms and processes for interlinking UID with partner data bases on a continuous basis" and ensuring "standardisation of data elements that are collected and digitised and enable collation with UID and its partner databases." Creation of a large and sustainable Aadhaar eco system: UIDAI has advocated a partnership model to leverage the existing infrastructure of Government and other institutions and to promote a model for sustainable development of various eco system partners. It is also admitted that cross verification with other data bases such as Census, Election Commission etc. has been underway disclosed an article entitled Aadhaar and Audit published in the November 2013 issue of Journal of Government Audit and Accounts.
The electoral database is a partner database of the database of the UIDAI's datbase. By now "shifting of the electoral roll database of all States/UTs to the ERONET platform" has been admitted on March 2, 2025. Over 60 crore voters' EPIC Number have been linked with Aadhaar Number although linking is "voluntary" like Aadhaar Number was advertised as "voluntary" and turned into mandatory in clear case of breach of trust.
Aadhaar Act is a mini-Constitution. Some eighteen years after “an online database with identity and biometric details of Indian residents”, UIDAI's Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UID/Aadhaar Numbers project was announced by Pranab Mukherjee as Finance Minister ahead of his visit to Washington D.C. to attend the launch of World Bank’s eTransform Initiative, political parties are yet to realize that CIDR of Aadhaar number is a tool for unlimited and endless electoral ‘surveillance’. It is a Weapon of Mass Destruction for democratic elections. By now it is becoming quite apparent that Pranab Mukherjee, the political father of UIDAI and his collaborators paved the way for the electoral rout of India’s oldest party.
After the publication of the 108-page long audit report on the performance of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) by the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) of India, the credulity of the leaders in the sectors is inexcusable and unpardonable. CAG’s official motto is लोकहितार्थ सत्यनिष्ठा:Dedicated to Truth in Public Interest" but by choosing not pay attention to its findings, the cabinet committee on security, national security advisors, judges, advocates, legislators, owner-editors, soldiers, civil society groups like Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Bharat Jodo Abhiyan and political parties including Jan Suraj Party have made themselves complicit. Prima facie they do not appear to be dedicated to Truth in Public Interest.
A Press Note dated September 7, 2026 issued by Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing bye-elections to 5 Assembly Constituencies of West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry has a paragraph about “Identification of Voters”. It reads:”3. IDENTIFICATION OF VOTERS: Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) shall be the main document of identification of a voter. However, any of the below mentioned identification documents can also be shown at the polling station:
i. Aadhar Card;
ii. MGNREGA Job Card;
iii. Passbooks with photograph issued by Bank/Post Office;
iv. Health Insurance Smart Card issued under the scheme of Ministry of Labour/Ayushman Bharat Health Card;
v. Driving License;
vi. PAN Card;
vii. Smart Card issued by RGI under NPR;
viii. Indian Passport;
ix. Pension document with photograph;
x. Service Identity Cards with photograph issued to employees
by Central/State Govt./PSUs/Public Limited Companies;
xi. Official identity cards issued to MPs/MLAs/MLCs; and
xii. Unique Disability ID (UDID) Card, M/o Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India.”
ECI has repeatedly committed the blunder by referring to“Aadhaar number” as “Aadhar Card”. Under Aadhaar Act, 20126, “Aadhaar number”, an identification number issued to an individual who has resided in India for a period or periods amounting in all to one hundred and eighty-two days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment, as “Aadhar Card”. Its spelling of the brand name of Unique Identity (UID) number is wrong. Its reference to “Card” is contrary to Aadhaar Act because there is no provision of “Card” under it. Out the 12 “identification documents”, the reference to “Aadhar Card” by ECI as the identification document no. 1 has an ulterior motive. “Aadhaar Card issued by UIDAI” was mentioned as the 15th identification document by the ECI in its communication dated May 28, 2013 addressed to the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal on the subject of “Bye-Election to the House of the People of the West Bengal State-Commission's Order regarding use of Electors Photo Identity Card and other alternative documents for identification of electors at the polling station.
The ECI’s communication of 2013 reads: “If any elector is not able to produce his/her EPIC, such elector shall have to produce any of the alternative photo documents prescribed. Kindly note that the “Smart Card” being issued under NPR scheme by RGI and “Aadhaar Card” issued by UIDAI have also been included as one of the alternative identity documents.”
From the very beginning ECI has erroneously been referring to “Aadhaar Number” as “Card”. In the beginning, the brand name of the UID number was correctly spelled as “Aadhaar”, not like “Aadhar” in Bengaluru based Adhar Trust or “Aadhar” in “Aadhar Oil” of Ahmedabad based Adani Wilmar Limited (now renamed as AWL Agri Business Ltd ). ECI ought to rectify its mistake. The correct spelling is mentioned in the name of Valsad based Aadhaar Trust.
The list of identification documents have been shrinking since 2010 when 22 identification documents were valid for voter identification. But it is intriguing as to who ordered the ECI to change the position of the Aadhaar from it being the 15th identification document to make “Aadhaar” as the identification document no.1.
The expression “Aadhar Card” and its placement as 15th identification document or 1st identification needs to be construed by applying the doctrine of ejusdem generis. The use of word ‘such’ implies similarity with what is specifically mentioned before and/or after the general expression. If all the current 12 identification documents or the earlier 15th identification documents are read together, it implies that all “identification documents”. But the fact is that “Aadhaar” is not similar to any of the other identification documents because it is an “identifier”, it simply identifies a “a person who has resided in India for 182 days prior to enrolment for Aadhaar”, it does not prove anything. It is different from all identification documents because it is not a “document” but is a number.
Section 2 (a) of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016.reads:“Aadhaar number” means an identification number issued to an individual under sub-section (3) of section 3, and includes any alternative virtual identity generated under sub-section (4) of that section”. Section 3 of the Act reads:”3. Aadhaar number.—(1) Every resident shall be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number by submitting his demographic information and biometric information by undergoing the process of enrolment: Provided that the Central Government may, from time to time, notify such other category of individuals who may be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number….(3) On receipt of the demographic information and biometric information under sub-section (1), the Authority shall, after verifying the information, in such manner as may be specified by regulations, issue an Aadhaar number to such individual. (4) The Aadhaar number issued to an individual under sub-section (3) shall be a twelve-digit identification number and any alternative virtual identity as an alternative to the actual Aadhaar number of an individual that shall be generated by the Authority in such manner as may be specified by regulations.” These provisions conclusively establish that “Aadhaar” refers to a 12-digit identification number, not to any “card”. Its advertisement as “Aadhar Card”, an unsigned piece of paper as one of the several specified identification documents is deliberately deceptive.
It is apparent that media groups, civil society groups like Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Bharat Jodo Abhiyan and political parties including Jan Suraj Party, the victor of historic Bankipur election are turning a blind eye towards ECI’s notifications and press notes regarding non-existent “Aadhar Card”.
Disregarding the ten fathom deep burial of the notorious majority opinion of the Supreme Court Justices P. N. Bhagwati, A.N. Ray, M.H. Beg and Y.V. Chandrachud in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla (1976) case that had suspended a person's right to not be unlawfully detained by 9-Judge Constitution Bench in Justice Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the majority opinion of Justices A. K. Sikri, Ashok Bhushan, A.M. Khanwilkar and D. Misra in Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2018) resurrected the notorious verdict by declaring Aadhaar Act to be partially constitutional on September 26, 2018. The Constitution Bench has declared Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which enabled body corporate and individual to seek authentication is held to be unconstitutional. Section 57 was titled “Act not to prevent use of Aadhaar number for other purposes under law”. Section 57 provided that “nothing contained in this Act (Aadhaar Act) shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person...” The repeal of the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Act 2019 illustrates that the union government does not wish to omit Section 57 disregarding Court’s judgement in this regard.
UIDAI's Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UID/Aadhaar Numbers and related sensitive information is akin to what Cathy O'Neil refers to as Weapons of Math Destruction while explaining the societal impact of the algorithm. It reveals how the use of big data and algorithms in a variety of fields, including education, and policing, insurance and advertising can lead to decisions that harm the poor, facilitate profiling for the minorities of all shades, reinforce racism, and amplifies inequality and creates a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Her book won the Euler Book Prize of the Mathematical Association of America in 2019. Features used by UIDAI and its foreign technology solution providers are opaque, unregulated, and difficult to contest. They are also scalable, thereby amplifying any inherent biases to affect increasingly larger populations. These Weapons of Math Destruction are essentially Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Giorgio Agamben, the 74-year-old Italian philosopher who has been teaching at the University of Venice and New York University, predicted in 2004 that the ‘bio-political tattooing’ is the precursor to what would later turn into a normal identity registration of a good citizen. It provides a continuity between the world of the Nazi concentration camp and contemporary democracy. It paves the way for a genocidal liberal order. Biometrics ‘concerns the enrollment and filing away of the most private and incommunicable aspect of subjectivity,which results in the capture of the human body by the authorities for good. Till now such assault on the private human body was an exception, now it is becoming the norm. Surveillance has been used as a tool to shape the relationship between the citizen and the State. Both identification and surveillance have co-existed since time immemorial, but it is now assuming frightening architecture with the marriage of statistics of biological characteristics, and biometric technology with digital sculpture.
Aadhaar Act is aimed at making citizens entitlements like subsidies, benefits and service conditional on their identification based on “biometric information” such as “photograph, finger print, Iris scan, or such other biological attributes”. It suspends citizens’ right to not be denied their entitlements by their servant, the government although “Aadhaar number”is irrelevant for rights and entitlements of citizens.
Notably, before abandoning its ID project, the UK used to cite Estonia as an example. Estonia has a population of 13 lakh people. It has come to light that 750,000 ID and e-residency cards of Estonians posed a security threat because it allowed private keys to be inferred from public keys resulting in the vulnerability of all systems depending upon the privacy of such keys facilitating identity theft or spoofing. It compelled the Estonian government to suspend these IDs. ID card manufacturer Gemalto, a Dutuch company failed to inform the Estonian government about the vulnerability. It has also come to light that Gemalto and the Estonian government have reached a compromise agreement after the former agreed to pay 2.2 million EUR in compensation.
It may be recalled that Gemalto is part of World Bank’s eTransform Initiative launched in partnership with Microsoft, Safran, Pfizer, IBM, France and South Korea. India’s UID/Aadhaar scheme is part of biometric experiments underway in 14 developing countries. As a Member of Parliament from Bihar, K.C. Tyagi had raised the issue of threat from “Use of Aadhaar Cards as proof of address for procuring new SIM cards” manufactured by Gemalto, world biggest Sim card manufacturer on 13 March, 2015 in the Rajya Sabha and referred to “I.B. red flag over ADHAR based SIM card”.
Drawing the attention towards reported hacking into the data of this SIM card manufacturer by US and British intelligence agencies posing a national security threat as the majority of phones in India may have SIMs of that company. Raising the issue during Zero Hour, a senior leader of Rashtriya Lok Dal, K C Tyagi, as the Janata Dal-United MP had said American and British spy agencies have hacked into the database of Dutch company Gemalto. Gemalto's SIM cards are widely used in India including by bureaucrats and the defence establishment. He added that the government's decision to link Aadhaar data base with SIM cards could potentially compromise strategic information. It poses a major national security threat.
Significantly, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, as the Trinamool Congress MP from West Bengal associated himself “with the concern expressed by Shri K. C. Tyagi.” Since July 2026, he a Rajay Sabha MP from BJP. Notably, the West Bengal assembly is the only State in the country which has passed a unanimous resolution against Aadhaar.
The concerns over the breach of citizens’ data has prompted several state governments to halt the ongoing data collection process for a National Population Register (NPR). The fear is that the information sought under NPR is much wider in scope and could potentially be used to target a section of the society.
What the anti-NPR advocates did not/do not realise is that there are more solid reasons to fear the NPR because it is not just a census exercise, but a larger data convergence project that can result in the government putting its citizens under surveillance, that is unwarranted and dangerous to the secular and constitutional credentials of the country. NPR's linkage with Aadhaar number plays a central role here.
In fact, NPR of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and CIDR of UID/Aadhaar numbers of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has created an architecture for indiscriminate mass surveillance of the present and future voters who are being structurally coerced to give their consent to the immoral and illegitimate exercise of their profiling for countless times.
It has turned every newborn into a suspect. There is a file being created to track and profile him for good. Like one Indian NSA's threat to his adversaries about having a file on them, having a UID/Aadhaar number and NPR automatically creates a file of the Indian residents in question. Even infants are not spared in this cruel scheme of things.
In a country where no intelligence chief or official has held accountable for the assassination of two of its Prime Ministers and for betraying nation's secrets, can it be hoped that all those who compromised India's data security will be made liable for their treacherous acts of transferring the sensitive data of present and future citizens including ministers, soldiers, judges and ministers?
There is a compelling logic for setting up a High Powered Commission of Inquiry to probe the ongoing bartering of citizen's databases and transfer of national data assets to foreign entities.
The States should un-sign the MoUs they have signed with UIDAI and discontinue both UID/Aadhaar and NPR exercise to resist the emergence of an unlimited government, unlimited by the Constitution of India and Constitutionalism.
No opposition party can be considered the voice of the people unless it promises to repeal Aadhaar Act, the black law because of the following reasons:
1. The majority order of the Supreme Court's 5-Judge Constitution Bench on September 26, 2018, has pointed out that the UID/Aadhaar Number project and NPR project are part of the one database convergence scheme. NPR has been mentioned at least on eight occasions in the order to underline the same. A centralized database is the most vulnerable entity in the digital world. The leakage of the database of UK’s children has revealed the old maxim, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, has been given a very public burial”. This has been thoroughly debunked. This maxim is attributed to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
2. At paragraph 8 of the majority order authored by Justice A K Sikri, it is recorded that "a Processes Committee was set up on July 03, 2006, to suggest the process for updation, modification, addition and deletion of data and fields from the core database to be created under the Unique Identification for BPL Families project.
This Committee, on November 26, 2006, prepared a paper known as 'Strategic Vision Unique Identification of Residents'. Based thereupon, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) was set up on December 04, 2006, to collate the National Population Register under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Unique Identification Number project of the Department "of Information Technology.
Subsequently, "a Committee of Secretaries was formed. The said Committee gave its recommendations which were discussed by EGoM. After approving the Aadhaar Scheme in principle, it instructed the Cabinet Secretary to convene a meeting to finalise the detailed organisational structure of the UID.
After considering the recommendation of the Cabinet Secretary, Notification No. A-43011/02/2009-Admn.I was issued on January 28, 2009, by the Government of India which constituted and notified the UIDAI." Annexure 1 of this notification that constituted UIDAI deals with the Role and Responsibilities of UIDAI. The fourth point in this notification reads: "implementation of UID scheme will entail" taking "necessary steps to ensure collation of NPR with UID (as per. approved strategy)".
3. The minutes of a meeting of the Committee of Secretaries held under Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary November 23, 2015 talks of "integrating the twin approaches under NPR and Aadhaar."
The "integrating the twin approaches under NPR and Aadhaar" which is referred here is the same as taking "necessary steps to ensure collation of NPR with UID (as per. approved strategy)" underlined in the notification mentioned in the Aadhaar Act.
4. A Ministry of Home Affairs communication dated July 19, 2019 states that "The National Population Register (NPR) thus prepared, was seeded with Aadhaar number during its updation exercise in 2015 along with a collection of demographic details of new household members. Approx. 60 crores Aadhaar numbers have been seeded in NPR Database."
This communication discloses that "It has now been decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs to update the existing NPR database during April 2020 - September 2020 along with House listing & Housing Census phase of Census 2021. While updating the NPR, the Aadhaar number of all the individuals whose Aadhaar number is not available in the NPR Database will also be collected along with various other items. Necessary notification for updating NPR in 2020 will be issued shortly." The disclosure needs to be factored in the backdrop of the Census 2027 which being conducted through digital means.
5. The Court's order reveals that "A core group was set up to advise and further the work related to UIDAI...The core group, inter alia, decided that it was better to start with the electoral roll database of 2009 for undertaking the UIDAI project." If an UID/Aadhaar-enabled Biometric Attendance System is indeed a ‘digital equivalent’ of an ‘age-old attendance register,’ why did the National Human Rights Commission object to a radio collar which can also be argued by sophists to be a ‘digital equivalent’? It may be recalled that the Union ministry of external affairs had agreed with the NHRC’s assessment. The Union minister of external affairs informed Parliament that some 18 students were detained and released in the US with radio monitoring devices on their ankles, pending completion of investigations for possible involvement in irregularities. ``We have also strongly protested the radio collars as unacceptable, which should be removed immediately.’ If the ‘digital equivalent’ means biometric equivalent as well, then radio collar and DNA-based identity and attendance will also be deemed equivalent to ‘age-old attendance register.’ It is quite evident that such claims are deeply misleading.
6. The reference to ‘such other biological attributes’ in Section 2 (g) of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, and the definition of ‘biometrics’ under the Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 under section 87 read with section 43A of Information Technology Act, 2000 underlines that it includes ‘the technologies that measure and analyse human body characteristics, such as “fingerprints”, “eye retinas and irises”, “voice patterns”, “facial patterns”, “hand measurements” and “DNA” for authentication purposes.’ It is abundantly clear that the plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it. If surveillance is not a big deal, why is Edward Snowden in Moscow since June 23, 2013? Why is Australian journalist Julian Assange one of the 675 prisoners in Belmarsh, a category A prison, in London since April 2019 and why was he in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since July 19, 2012? If surveillance is indeed such an innocent act, then why are the entire US and European establishments paranoid about surveillance including electoral surveillance from Russia?
It is apparent that the merger of Voter-ID Number and Aadhaar Number through amendment in Aadhaar Act, an exercise in merger of electoral database and Aadhaar database will lead to total control of the extinguish political and civil rights of present and future generations by such rewriting of the political geography of the country with hitherto unknown adverse consequences.
So far the Supreme Court has not had the occasion to examine the most glaring aspect of unlimited-cyber biometric surveillance, which entails close observation of all the present and future Indians indiscriminately as suspects. Drawing lessons from both the ruling and opposition parties of UK, Indian parties too should repeal of Aadhaar Act, a mini-Constitution emulating the example of 44th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1978 because in the name of biometric identification, civil death of citizens is being normalised and naturalised as if Article 21 of the Constitution has been abrogated.
Dr. Gopal Krishna
You may also want to read…
India's First Mass Surveillance, Mass Spying and Unending Census Case
India's First Mass Surveillance, Mass Spying and Unending Census Case Part -2
India's First Mass Surveillance, Mass Spying and Unending Census Case-Part 3
A Tale of Two Unconstitutional Legislations and Apocalypse in Journalism: India's First Mass Surveillance, Mass Spying Unending Census Case-Part 17
Deleterious ramifications of judgement on voters/citizens ridden with linguistic blunders: India's First Mass Surveillance, Mass Spying Unending Census Case-Part 18
India's First Mass Surveillance, Mass Spying Unending Census Case-Part 19
(The author is a practicing advocate and a researcher of philosophy, mass communication and law. His current work is focused on the philosophy of digital totalitarianism and the monetisation of nature. He has appeared before the Supreme Court's Committees, Parliamentary Committees of Europe, Germany and India and UN agencies on the subject of national and international legislations on UID/Aadhaar/NPR, DNA profiling through criminal identification procedures, nuclear damage, consumers, land acquisition, biological diversity, finance, hazardous waste trade, water cycle and corporate crimes since 2001. He is an ex-Fellow, International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter Strategies (IRGAC)-University of Potsdam, Germany.)
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