Aadhaar Good For Citizens, But Can Be Misused: Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary, Department Of Homeland Security, USA

The debate has been long drawn and discussed among intellectuals, government officials, media and the people of India. The question is, can Aadhaar Card be misused? “No”, says Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communications & Information Technology, Government of India. The minister has asserted in the past that “Aadhaar is completely safe, secure and robust”.

Michael Chertoff, Former United States Secretary of Department of Homeland Security agrees, "Aadhaar Card cannot really be misused but the information on the card can be”. It is worth noting here that Secretary Chertoff, who was at the helm of affairs during the Bush and earlier part of Obama administration raises a concern on the handling of information incurred via an Aadhaar card.

Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Indian Member of Parliament and a critique of Aadhaar, wrote this essay sometime back. Here is a quote from the essay:

“Aadhaar involves collection of a large amount of people’s data and centralization of this data in their databases. Predictably, real issues of privacy arise, in a country like ours, where privacy laws are not robust and the issue itself not fully or adequately debated. The privacy issue is even more dangerous given the track record of Governments and bureaucrats in India. As the New York Times wrote “Unsurprisingly, some people see the idea of a centralized identity database as a dystopian nightmare. Privacy advocates contend that the government will use it to track citizens, a serious concern in a country where the government carries out extensive wiretapping and surveillance.”

Mr. Chandrashekhar raises the right concern. Of course, privacy is an issue in a country like India where the privacy laws are not robust. The government, by asking several kinds of information from the citizens via Aadhaar and entering it into a central database is indeed frightful. Imagine, every piece of information about anyone in the country is available in a single go. Of course it is a handy tool to check illegal and terrorist activities but it is also an optimal tool to track people for benefits best fitting the rulers-in-charge.

Reminds me of a concept shared by Thomas Hobbes, famous 16th century English philosopher who talked about an overarching government called the Leviathan. The Leviathan has full information of its citizens and in turn, full control over them. While Thomas Hobbes calls himself a patron of the Leviathan, many philosophers after him criticize the extensive authority Hobbes gives to the rulers. “Hobbes is often criticised for curbing our civil liberties and inalienable rights by depriving us of them in favour of the absolute sovereign. His absolute system of governance is sometimes believed to be incompatible with any liberal society whatsoever”, says Matthew Machowski, Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London and defence and aviation analyst at the UK Houses of parliament.

Using the above in context with Aadhaar, it is apparently clear that a government which has all the information about its citizens develops into an absolute sovereign which can, according to Machowski, infringe the civil liberties and rights of a citizen living in a liberal society.

In a state like India, where Aadhaar forms an identity to many people living in the rural parts of the country, it also brings an iota of threat to the privacy and security of many people. Michael Chertoff, in the above video, discussed at length on the possibility of misuse (or not?) of Aadhaar.