i used to be in the same ideological camp as the op in the beginning. but after seeing how many processes one takes for granted elsewhere got sped up with the new system, you really need to evaluate your overall opinion about this.
having lived as an outsider in other countries, many considered as beacons of public freedom, i found a universal id system in almost all of the cases. there were also some cyclical dependency issues that are hard to break without having one by just getting it done for you by your parents or something. this is where i struggle to understand why in those contexts an id like this is completely acceptable but not for indians?
i do still agree on the front that this is not a bulletproof system, and misuse/abuse still exists. the local tax id (pan) is no longer accepted as valid id because in the past many got it made through non-legit means. but when non-person entities (from pets to deities) are sometimes assigned one in one-off cases, there can be some skepticism on the original goal for the project.
about biometrics, that argument seems weak coming from those who are expats and gave up theirs for their visas. but the one about mandating it to all is something i'd personally thought to stop thinking too much about.
The article doesn't make an argument around biometrics. Biometrics are needed even for getting a passport or registering a property purchase, but notice how those are never brought up in any argument around Aadhaar's use of biometrics, whether arguing for or against.
Procedural speed-ups are not because of the technology of Aadhaar, but because of the regulatory regime favouring it. The same fast processes also work without Aadhaar wherever there's been regulatory pushback against mandatory Aadhaar. For instance, video KYC works just fine without Aadhaar, and CKYC with just PAN also does instant KYC.
These are procedural decisions, not technological improvement with Aadhaar. Dig into how it works and you'll find that the technology isn't even where they claim it is.
i mentioned biometrics as historically it used to be a major point against the entire system. it is equally interesting to note that this aspect is no longer discussed as much.
we need to yet again stress on the universal part of the system. PAN might have KYC benefits, but keep in mind that there were about 67.7 million tax returns filed this year [1] compared to 1.42 billion or so living in the country. so assuming that everyone can benefit from PAN or other ID systems that are applicable for specific use cases is not enough to reach everyone.
whatever mix resulted into what Aadhaar is today, there are affordances that this allows that were previously not possible. keeping in mind that this has been a bipartisan effort, if there was indeed an existing system they could have improved, there should have been enough political and industrial will for it.
i just personally come to better appreciate it in hindsight now.
Biometrics are not discussed much these days because Aadhaar is no longer a strictly biometric id – either at enrollment or in usage.
Biometrics are not collected for toddlers and not considered reliable for under-15s, and that segment was about 30% of the population in the 2011 census. An unknown number have never updated Aadhaar to add biometrics.
Biometric auth fell into disuse with the shift to mobile internet. The government tried strong-arming Apple and Google into taking fingerprint scanners out of the hardware secure zone so they could send scanned fingerprints (minutiae) to UIDAI servers. That didn't work, so they tried coaxing OEMs to make Aadhaar phones with a second fingerprint reader. TRAI – whose chairman 2016-2020 was the ex-UIDAI head – even tried framing it as "device neutrality" borrowing from European app store regulation. None of that worked, so they just moved from biometrics to SMS OTPs for rich people, while continuing to harass poor people for it.
Aadhaar as a unique id was always a galaxy-brained idea when there's no biometrics for children, no removal of dead people, and confusion of uniqueness in an identity scheme vs uniqueness in a much smaller welfare scheme where there's always surplus population who will never notice identity theft.
The only good thing about Aadhaar is the card – it's given people a document that's near-universally accepted. But the Aadhaar card is an organic development that was not part of the original design – where the card was merely meant to be a receipt delivered via the post as a probe to confirm the address – and remains an afterthought in the narrative. Even today you'll find Aadhaar proponents who don't understand how the card is a very different thing from the digital id they associate Aadhaar with.
having lived as an outsider in other countries, many considered as beacons of public freedom, i found a universal id system in almost all of the cases. there were also some cyclical dependency issues that are hard to break without having one by just getting it done for you by your parents or something. this is where i struggle to understand why in those contexts an id like this is completely acceptable but not for indians?
i do still agree on the front that this is not a bulletproof system, and misuse/abuse still exists. the local tax id (pan) is no longer accepted as valid id because in the past many got it made through non-legit means. but when non-person entities (from pets to deities) are sometimes assigned one in one-off cases, there can be some skepticism on the original goal for the project.
about biometrics, that argument seems weak coming from those who are expats and gave up theirs for their visas. but the one about mandating it to all is something i'd personally thought to stop thinking too much about.