HYDERABAD: Experts from various fields exposed the gaps in the Aadhaar project during a debate on ‘Researching Aadhaar: Identifying the Gaps’ held during the International Conference on Digital Identity that kicked off at the Indian School of Business (ISB) here on Wednesday.

“Surveillance, right to privacy and financial exclusion are three major aspects to be looked into while implementing Aadhaar. UIDAI founding chairperson Nandan Nilekani was talking about different phases in developing Aadhaar like a database where development is stated as one of the prime objectives. These are all false phases. There is only one phase, and legality of Aadhaar is to be decided by the Supreme Court,” said Swagato Sarkar of the OP Jindal Global University.

Another panellist, Malavika Raghavan of Dvara Research said, “There are both financial and data risks involved in the Aadhaar project. Aadhaar impacts finance . A credit score is decided using non-financial information and non-traditional info like purchases made online, browsing history, time spent online. Data ownership is another major aspect.”

“Providers should be made liable for failed and unauthorised transactions. Aadhaar-linked accounts and Aadhaar-enabled payment processes do not bear the costs of failures in this system. The Reserve Bank of India has recently taken a step limiting the liability of customers in unauthorised electronic banking transactions. We need to move this into live regulation and extend it for non-banking financial institutions and third parties,” Raghavan added.

Prof Amit Prakash of IIT Bengaluru, “Much is talked about leakage prevention in Aadhaar. The question is simple -- like in the legal system no innocent shall be punished. Likewise, here food security is important, and no person shall be left hungry due to exclusion. It appears in the Aadhaar system that is not on the priority list. The technology of Aadhaar is designed not in the manner that food security or benefits are ensured. There are political considerations in designing Aadhaar.”

