In a rather contrived way, Nandan Nilekani, the current chairman of Infosys and architect of Aadhaar programme, on Thursday asserted that systems like Aadhaar and UPI can make Indians richer. He said that Indians are getting data rich and they will be able to sell or share this data for actual money or services.

Nilekani said that all data, the digital trail that is available because of Aadhar and UPI, is good because Indians will be able to sell or barter their information to get economical benefits.

Speaking at first #Future conference, organised by Kerala government to promote the state to IT companies and entrepreneurs, Nilekani said that India and West were different when it came to handling and using data. He said that in countries like the US people were economically rich before the digital services entered into the picture and data was generated on people. Those rich people, he asserted, might have different ways in which they could use their own data. But in India it is different.

Nilekani said that in India people are poor economically but with the help of Aadhaar and UPI have become data rich. He said that unlike in the West where data is held by a handful of people hinting at the founders of companies like Google and Facebook in India data belongs to small players, like banks, mobile companies and individuals. Because Indians are now data rich, individuals will be able to give or barter their data for economical benefits such as low-cost treatment in a hospital or better loan deals based on tax records, said Nilekani.

While the idea of people, who are poor economically but rich with data, bartering their information for monetary benefits sounds interesting, it is also a rather weird trade. The argument treats data like a commodity, disregarding some of the other facets such as privacy, dignity and rule of law. It is akin to saying that poor women can sell sex for economic benefits and hence selling sex is perfectly alright. But seemingly Nilenkani doesnt look at it like it. He believes that once India has some data protection law, bartering personal data for economic benefit would give poor Indians a viable way to get goods and services. When asked if he had any fresh concerns about Aadhaar in the wake of Cambridge Analytica-Facebook controversy, Nilekani said that it was not something that people in India needed to worry about. He said that Aadhaar programme and infrastructure is completely safe and secure. This incident doesnt weaken Aadhaar case at all, Nilekani said, hinting at the case in Supreme Court, which is hearing a constitutional challenge to Aadhaar. We have a good case.