India To Issue Over a Billion Biometric ID Cards

angrytuna writes "The Unique Identification Authority is a new state department in India charged with assigning every living Indian an exclusive number and biometric ID card. The program is designed to alleviate problems with the 20 current types of proof of identity currently available. These problems range from difficulties for the very poor in obtaining state handouts, corruption, illegal immigration, and terrorism issues. Issuing the cards may be difficult, however, as less than 7% of the population is registered for income tax, and voter lists are thought to be inaccurate, partly due to corruption. The government has said the first cards will be issued in 18 months."

Re:Sick priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Its an attempt to improve delivery of social services (e.g. food supplies to the poor), subsidies and also to address security concerns. Or did you think those things happen only in the US?

Re:Illegal Immigration?

[TheWingThing]

They have problems with people trying to get INTO India? I thought everyone wanted to get out!

Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Nepal
Terrorists from Pakistan
Refugees from Sri Lanka (and to a tiny extent, Burma)

You need to get out of your little well once in a while.

Re:I have a biometric ID and so do you

[Attila Dimedici]

Except that if Illinois is like many states, the fact that your photograph is on your license doesn't do the DMV any good when you have lost your license. Most states don't have your photograph on file. They send you a renewal form. You sign it and send it back along with the fee for renewal. They send you a form that you take to the appropriate location where your picture is taken and a license is printed with your picture on it. This picture never enters the state's database.

A New Everest!

[Philip K Dickhead]

If the cards were piled on top of each other they would be 150 times as high as Mount Everest -- 1,200 kilometres.

India's legions of local bureaucrats currently issue at least 20 proofs of identity, including birth certificates, driving licences and ration cards. None is accepted universally and moving from one state to the next can easily render a citizen officially invisible -- a disastrous predicament for the millions of poor who rely on state handouts to survive.

Re:Sick priorities

[gad_zuki!]

Theres only so much you can do for poverty. Programs are already in place for them.

Its no different in the rest of the world. Government makes priorities and budgets. Id hate to see an entire nation held back because there will always be poor people. Cannibalizing the good parts of government to just hand out meals is never a sustainable policy.

That said, there can be social goods from good accounting like this. More people paying taxes, better census, jobs created, better tracking of migrations, identification of criminals, etc etc.

Re:Billionth Indian

[characterZer0]

Indians do not stand in queues. They stand in masses and push and shove to get to the front.

Re:Assign them numbers.

[electrostatic]

From TFA -- "It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens..."
2^30 = 1,073,741,824

Every single person...

And what about married persons?

Re:Oblig. quote

[Anonymous Coward]

1976 presidential elections say otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1976

Re:Sick priorities

[redmagician]

Without proper identification, it becomes to difficult to serve state services (such as unemployment, relaxed microloans, susidized food to lots of 'starving and homeless' people you mentioned in your message, and so on). In my opinion, this should have been implemented several decades ago. US/Canada have Social Security/Social Insurance number and it makes it easier for government to provide state services using that number. India doesn't have anything of that sort (yet).

Re:But when will it be done?

[hansraj]

Perhaps you are trolling but I will respond nevertheless.

India is an amazing country: full of contradictions, and somehow the wheels still turn just fine.

I have been to banks in India where I had to spend the whole day to encash a cheque; the usual routine was to go to the bank, get in the queue and hand the cheque to the cashier, take a token, go home, have lunch, and come back in time to get the money. I have also been to banks that one would consider pretty efficient with every encashing taking roughly two or three minutes despite it being pretty crowded.

The government is horribly inefficient, but some private companies are as efficient as I have seen here in Germany. The point being that chances are that the companies involved in the outsourcing business are not government-owned.

I have heard people complain about the quality of outsourced jobs - and frankly I have no experience about either side of the story - but that is another story altogether and has nothing to do with the fact that the Indian government can't handle issuing voter-id cards properly.

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