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A unique number

When in 1936 the United States began to issue account numbers for employees covered by social security programmes, it processed 30 million applications in eight months. Seven decades later the United Progressive Alliance government may find it a lot more challenging to provide every Indian citizen a Unique Identification (UID) Number and, more importantly, to make its use meaningful. A unique identification number can avoid duplication of records and help people in numerou s ways. Fraud in welfare programmes can be curbed, health records for individuals created, security and tax administration improved, and banking and financial transactions speeded up. The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) highlighted such benefits when it approved, in November 2008, the establishment of a UID Authority (under the Planning Commission) for all residents in India. As envisaged by the EGoM, the UID Authority would maintain a core database of personally identifying information. Any agency dealing with individuals could incorporate the UID number in its own database; such agencies would be able to share information with others that maintain a similar database. But creating a secure national database of 1.17 billion people is a massive challenge. The Election Commission’s experience with photo identity cards for voters is indicative of the high cost and difficulties involved. The ID scheme also requires legal safeguards to ensure that a central repository of personal information does not produce an Orwellian state that stifles civil liberties. The idea of a unique identification number for different categories of people has been on the anvil for many years. Unorganised workers, stockbrokers and their clients, and members of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation were to be covered. But these plans made little headway.

The present UID initiative can help merge the silos of data on residents maintained by different agencies and departments, and the electoral rolls are a good starting point. The task before the co-founder of Infosys Technologies, Nandan Nilekani, who has been appointed chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India, is to draw up the information architecture that can unify the scattered collections of data into a national database. This can take off only if government departments and various agencies are fully networked. What is vital is the integrity of the data collection and verification processes. The wide gap between citizens and residents is an issue that needs to be resolved. If it is not to end up like the earlier experiments, the UID Authority must come up with a system that can create and maintain records relating to disparate groups including migrant labour, unorganised workers, senior citizens, and rural residents. In parallel, the government must introduce data protection legislation. There must be no compromise on the key principle that an individual has the right to access personal data held in the official database and to amend the particulars.

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