Colonel (retd) Mathew Thomas was one of the petitioners in the case challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. On the basis of information secured from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) through queries under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, he says the very concept of biometrical profiling of citizens is fraught with dangers: of data breach, of misuse, of manipulation. The author of The Sham ID called Aadhaar: Hoax of the Century, he has moved the Delhi High Court seeking its intervention to make public the technical bid details of the contract between the biometric service provider and the UIDAI. His RTI interventions yielded him a copy of the contract but without the portion about the technical details.

Excerpts from an interview:

Why do you want the court to intervene in getting the technical details of the UIDAI’s contract with the biometric service provider?

It will expose the falsehood about security of data. The technical details will show that the data collected by the biometric service provider, called LI Identity Solution Operating Company Pvt. Ltd, incorporated in Delaware, U.S., are totally at its disposal, with the UIDAI having no control over them, and the foreign company is free to use, store or do whatever it wants with the data. Also, the technical details will show that the data collected have no guaranty of accuracy; that almost one in10 databases can be wrong; that false negative acceptance, which means one can create multiple false identities, is also a possibility. The technical specification will make it obvious that biometric identification across large populations does not work.

Why do you call Aadhaar a sham ID, which is also the title of your book?

It actually is a big hoax: first of all, it is not an identity card, it is just a number, and biometric numbering is usually done for criminals. Second, the data are not 100 per cent accurate because the UIDAI itself has accepted in an RTI reply that 80 million fake/false data were detected in 2014-15. All these applications were rejected by the UIDAI, and it is not known whether these people got their Aadhaar numbers or not.

Also, it has been accepted by the UIDAI, in another RTI reply, that even illegal immigrants can get Aadhaar numbers. In another RTI reply, the UIDAI has admitted that it cannot identify a dead body using this number, which means this number cannot be used for identifying individuals either, which further means that the biometric data are only corroborative and are based on quarrying of data from the database. This makes it extremely vulnerable to manipulation.

If there is so much scepticism about Aadhaar, then why do you think the government is in such a hurry to link everything with it?

For one, those in government are simply looking at a convenient way out for verification purposes. Another reason could be that the government is under tremendous pressure to go ahead with this linking business. The fraudulent manner in which the Aadhaar Bill was passed by Parliament, as a money Bill, makes the government’s intent suspect. It needs to be ascertained what made the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] suddenly change its mind about Aadhaar, after having opposed it so vehemently during the UPA [United Progressive Alliance] regime. What exactly changed in the meantime? I am trying to dig up the truth because, in my opinion, it is a matter of our national security and I just hope, somebody, someday, will see reason and ask the government the right questions.

Purnima S. Tripathi