New Principles for Governing Aadhaar: Improving Access and Inclusion, Privacy, Security, and Identity Management

Abstract

Legal identification for all by 2030 is a global strategic goal under the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 16.9). Legal identification is perceived as a critical element in increasing people’s participation in society and providing them with access to services that can improve their quality of life. Aadhaar, India’s digital identity programme, is the world’s largest identity project aimed at providing foundational ID and access to state welfare across the nation. By 2019, 1.2 billion people had a registered Aadhaar card. National and state welfare services, and increasingly, a host of private sector services, are linked to Aadhaar. However, India’s eID programme has faced significant civil and judicial resistance over matters of privacy, fraud, welfare exclusion and surveillance. This technology assessment focusses on evaluating Aadhaar using four lenses: the accessibility of Aadhaar and its impact on welfare distribution, privacy concerns and contestations, security issues associated with the Aadhaar architecture, and finally the efficacy of identity management processes. Aadhaar’s growing prominence in public and private sector services means that the risks and vulnerabilities in the technology also become embedded in the socio-economic fabric of society. This paper discusses how the current efforts to address highlighted risks are insufficient and drive distrust in the system. This paper concludes by providing recommendations that can help address existing issues. Improving civil society participation in Aadhaar’s current and future direction can help foster trust in the Aadhaar ecosystem. Digital rights training presents an avenue to educate all Aadhaar stakeholders on their data rights, digital risks, and mitigation strategies. Formalizing UIDAI as an independent authority, not tied to the central government, can also improve the transparency and governance of Aadhaar and provide a pathway for greater participation across public sector, private sector and civil society actors and can provide opportunities to develop acceptable innovations on top of the eID system.