Addressing a meeting of divisional commissioners and DMs on 21st January in Patna, chief minister Nitish Kumar asked them to concentrate on three programmes: census, unique photo identity card and upcoming panchayat elections.
It must be noted that seventeen eminent individuals have raised concerns on the manner in which Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI) has been constituted on basis of government notification and the risks it poses to civil liberties with the convergence of UID and NATgrid project.
Through a signed letter the activists working in different areas have asked the government to halt the project, initiate a feasibility study, analyze the constitutional implications, bring a privacy act, do a cost benefit analysis and initiate a public debate on the UID. The signatories included Justice VR Krishna Iyer, Prof Romila Thapar, K.G.Kannabiran, Kavita Srivastava, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, S.R.Sankaran, Deep Joshi, Upendra Baxi, Uma Chakravarthi, Shohini Ghosh, Amar Kanwar, Bezwada Wilson, Trilochan Sastry, Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar, Shabnam Hashmi and Justice A.P.Shah.
UID is direct opposite of the Right To Information (RTI) Act. The RTI enables citizens to know everything about the government and UID will allow government to know everything about citizen. Justice A P Shah, retired judge of Delhi High Court expressed his apprehensions that various actors of the state may misuse such information in case of state sponsored violence.
Concerns about privacy, surveillance, profiling as a result of the UID Number led to countries like US, Australia and UK abandoning such Nazi projects.
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