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."

Difficulty

[Anonymous Coward]

Issuing the cards may be difficult

But spending the money sure won't.

In the business of government, as long as the money passes through your hands, you win.

But when will it be done?

[hansraj]

Not that I look forward to being in a huge database, but I am curious how long it will take given that things are so chaotic in India.

Some years ago when the government decided to issue voter cards for everyone eligible to vote, everyone in my family who qualified went to get photographed etc and some months later the cards turned up... with everyone's data mixed up. So my father was not only a woman but the daughter of my sister who happened to be the wife of my mother and so on. And pretty much every family in the neighborhood had their's screwed up as well.

So one billion people and at least two trials.. I would give the program at least 10 years - and that is being optimistic, I think.

Re:Sick priorities

[Ilgaz]

Trick is making countries buy technologies which they can`t afford (including nukes) and ask them to give up a resource when the loan pay day comes.

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hitman-Perkins-John/dp/B001GG67CC/ [amazon.com]

"For many years he worked for an international consulting firm where his main job was to convince LDCs (less developed countries) around the world to accept multibillion-dollar loans for infrastructure projects and to see to it that most of this money ended up at Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown and Root, and other United States engineering and construction companies."

This one serves to NWO too, double evil ;) ID Card guys will say "look, even India uses them" to suspicious govt. guys.

Re:re-identification and stolen identities

[Repossessed]

Part of the corruption with ID in India right now is unpersons, people with no ID and who have been 'lost' in the records. Asshats (who probably payed someone to lose the records in the first place) will then go in and claim that person's property as public land, since that person can't prove it belongs to them anymore. A better ID sceme and a central database will hopefully alleviate the problem, even if there are still other exploits in the system to be used.

Re:Unfounded optimism

[bhagwad]

Spot on - the UK recently gave up on ID cards [bhagwad.com] because it was (amongst other reasons) too costly.

How on earth is India going to afford it with 20 times the population and 51 times less per capita GDP? Something's not right here.

The Keeping Tabs Around The World section

[rev_sanchez]

From the article: The Bush Administration resisted calls for an identity card in the US after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

I guess it would be more accurate to say, "The Bush Administration resisted calls for an identity card in the US after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 until he signed the Real ID Act into law in 2005." [wikipedia.org]

We needed this ...

[Sukhbir]

very badly. Considering there are different cards for almost everything in which you need an identification check, this was long required. I have card A for casting my vote, B for getting my LPG supply for cooking, C for getting subsidized food. If I lose any one of them, I have to go through the entire process again which involves around four to five working days and bribing corrupt government officials who are not ready to work. For getting a thing as simple as cellphone connection, I have to submit at least 3 identification documents - my voter card, my driving license and a college confirmation letter (in case you are a student). This has been done to check the use of mobile phones by terrorists, but since there is no standardized identification, it hurts the common man who just needs to get his work done. We are all looking forward to this. Lets just hope it gets through.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know they dumb down their names so the verbally challenged (with dumb queries in the first place) Americans can pronounce them correctly? The smart Americans don't call tech support most of the times. http://www.aajkatv.com/pplayer.php?id=157 [aajkatv.com]

It will never work.

[bikehorn]

It's India. If you don't understand, spend some time there, and not just going to touristy sites. It just has no chance of succeeding as a universal replacement IMO.