'Big Brother' In India Requires Fingerprint Scans For Food, Phones, Finances (nytimes.com) 132
The New York Times reports of the Indian government's intent to build an identification system of unprecedented scope. The country is reportedly "scanning the fingerprints, eyes and faces of its 1.3 billion residents (alternative source) and connecting the data to everything from welfare benefits to mobile phones." Here's an excerpt from the report: Civil libertarians are horrified, viewing the program, called Aadhaar, as Orwell's Big Brother brought to life. To the government, it's more like "big brother," a term of endearment used by many Indians to address a stranger when asking for help. For other countries, the technology could provide a model for how to track their residents. And for India's top court, the ID system presents unique legal issues that will define what the constitutional right to privacy means in the digital age. The government has made registration mandatory for hundreds of public services and many private ones, from taking school exams to opening bank accounts.
Technology has given governments around the world new tools to monitor their citizens. In China, the government is rolling out ways to use facial recognition and big data to track people, aiming to inject itself further into everyday life. Many countries, including Britain, deploy closed-circuit cameras to monitor their populations. But India's program is in a league of its own, both in the mass collection of biometric data and in the attempt to link it to everything -- traffic tickets, bank accounts, pensions, even meals for undernourished schoolchildren.
Technology has given governments around the world new tools to monitor their citizens. In China, the government is rolling out ways to use facial recognition and big data to track people, aiming to inject itself further into everyday life. Many countries, including Britain, deploy closed-circuit cameras to monitor their populations. But India's program is in a league of its own, both in the mass collection of biometric data and in the attempt to link it to everything -- traffic tickets, bank accounts, pensions, even meals for undernourished schoolchildren.
You probably don't want to think (Score:5, Interesting)
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It is probably to stop people from abusing the system.
In the US we have food banks all over the place to help people.
I know at least 4 different people that try to rope my wife into going into them and saying she has 4 kids. Just to get 'free food' on top of their existing EBT cards. This sort of 'crime' is wildly common unfortunately. One dude I knew had a job and makes payments on 2 cars (he is single and lives by himself). STILL does this.
The food banks usually quickly go under due to lack of resourc
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I don't know why the parent was marked down to -1. The poster has expressed his/her opinion of why the Indian government may want to establish a form of identification/authentication tied directly to individuals, and cited examples of potential fraud in the US system that by analogy are relevant.
I have personally observed similar instances of potential fraud, and have had other instances related to me, so the poster's observations appear valid and relevant to me.
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"You don't get people off welfare by giving them more welfare. You get people off welfare by assisting them in job placements, financial planning, drug rehabilitation, and educational endeavors."
How about : You don't get people out of hospitals by giving them more hospital care. You get people out of hospital by assisting them in job placement, drug rehabilitation financial planning, and educational endeavors.
i.e. financial assistance or hospital care doesn't exclude other forms of assistance, and vice vers
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No, my point was they're both nonsensical to the same degree.
Like why would "assisting them in job placements, financial planning, drug rehabilitation, and educational endeavors" exclude "giving welfare".
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Yes.
I used Like because I was only stating one of the ways the original assertion is faulty.
Kind of like using 'for example', but it adds a level of sloppiness to the argument, which I found appropriate, as I'm still not clear on all that's involved.
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My argument is that it isn't nonsense to support someone financially (for rent, food, etc.) and at the same time support them on other levels.
We can try to make sure we understand each other's arguments and word use better. Reducing the signal to noise ratio in comments can help on that level.
Your 'just free shit' and 'scumbag fraudsters' arguments are certainly worth debating but they're not what I have issue with here.
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No. These are both examples of false equivilancies:
"They're both living animals that metabolize chemical energy. There's no difference between a pet cat and a pet snail."
"The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is no different from your neighbor dripping some oil on the ground when changing oil in his car."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I'm referring to a similarity in logical construction
To get someone off welfare it isn't nonsensical to continue giving them welfare so they can get things like assistance in j
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Yes, of course.
But that is not what I'm saying. To simplify, I mean that it makes sense to give welfare and other forms of social support at the same time because then one can pay for housing and food while one receives the other support services.
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"Slaves didn't have to pay for healthcare, housing, or food"
Yes they did, maybe not with money but they still payed.
"Whoever pays for life's essentials is your master"
No, that doesn't follow.
"Some of us prefer to not allow the government to steal from us to pay for its slaves"
They don't.
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I'm not disagreeing but I'm not sure how that's relevant.
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Not sure how you mean, please elaborate
Re: You probably don't want to think (Score:2)
I. Keene NH you have homeless people on the street panhanding in the dead of winter too.
I live there too. And I hadn't seen some many homeless until I came to NH.
You call it good? I call it ineffectual. Keene ccould use two to three more homeless shelters because the one can't keep up with demand.
Re: One step away (Score:3)
Itâ(TM)s not the mark of the beast. Unless you consider our fingerprints and DNA the mark already.
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How anyone could take that drivel seriously is beyond me.
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I have. And I want what that guy was smoking.
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Just slightly ahead of the curve. (Score:2, Interesting)
We are getting it here in the west too. I live in Sweden and its getting increasingly difficult to communicate with government run services with out a "mobile ID" (which is made by a private firm and requires a newish smartphone BTW) even riding a bus requires a "smartphone" and you have to show a valid ID to ride a train.... Strangely you can still fly in Europe without showing an ID, its easier to get on a plane incognito than a local bus...
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Europe has similar levels of free-speech protection as the US. Possibly greater, as you can't be fired at will in many countries if you voice an unpopular opinion. True, in some countries, you can be arrested or fined for Fascist speech, but that stands to reason. Fascism caused a lot of suffering in Europe, and wanting to bring those times back is pretty close to treason.
Basically, it's a threat -- you're promoting government action to take away people's rights. The US equivalent would probably be some
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Stop lying.
You want to communicate with government services? Use your phone - yes even a dumb phone or a land line would work. Or download some papers and send away. Or go to local branches of whatever you want to communicate with and ask for some assistance.
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We are getting it here in the west too. I live in Sweden and its getting increasingly difficult to communicate with government run services with out a "mobile ID" (which is made by a private firm and requires a newish smartphone BTW) even riding a bus requires a "smartphone" and you have to show a valid ID to ride a train.... Strangely you can still fly in Europe without showing an ID, its easier to get on a plane incognito than a local bus...
You can still communicate with every government run service by oldschool phone, and the kind of mail you put a stamp on. Bank ID isn't just for mobiles, but you'd need a windows computer. Tickets for public transportation can be bought with cash. Afaik every airline in Europe demand that you have a valid ID to show upon request.
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Strangely you can still fly in Europe without showing an ID, its easier to get on a plane incognito than a local bus...
It depends on where you are travelling to; even some Schengen-area countries have re-imposed ID checks - France, for example.
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Finn here; we use e-banking credentials (all of which are required by law to use 2-step authentication) lo log in and identify to government services like filing taxes etc. There's a notable difference between requiring a trustworthy method for people to identify themselves in order to access their own personal information stored and handled by the government and requiring fingerprints
Fuck India (Score:1, Troll)
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Umm.. you realize that's probably not necessary. They're obviously already doing a lot of fucking just amongst themselves.
upright citizens, saving food (Score:2)
make that 1.25 billion....
start a war, or announce new taxes and onerous collection, listen for protests, edit the list,
make that 1.24 billion....
give extra food to supporters
make that 1.31 billion....
see how that works ?
Re: Poor And Surveilled (Score:1)
Elaborate?
Well, at least ... (Score:2)
That's great (Score:1)
Unlike liberal liberals I see nothing wrong in this. In fact I think it's great.
In switzerland you notify your local community office that you moved in and everyone gets notified of the change (including your bank). Same when you leave. Everyone who cares knows you left and your new place of abode.
If you can do other things with it like make people pay their parking tickets or notify next of kin of some mishap then great.
Re: That's great (Score:1)
It seems to me you confused yourself there. And that's exactly why you are an anonymous coward.
So to recap - this is a good thing because it enables streamlining if tedious paperwork.
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For example, if I move, but for some reason I still want all mail to go old address (so nobody needs to know, as far as they are concern I'm still reachable there, I'm physically elsewhere) am I required by law to register under new location anyway? And if so, what is the punishment for disobedience?
Re:That's great (Score:4, Insightful)
India still has a caste system going nice and strong--several of the things that 'Big Brother' here is intended to do would work very, very well for ensuring people will have a very difficult time attempting to escape their preordained proper place (such as daring to want to have a job that wasn't dirty, dangerous and demeaning), punish those who try anyway, and probably also cull the population.
Oh, and they've got problems like people being legally dead when they're not being deceased. Admittedly, this system will ensure that such errors are quickly fixed...by blocking the legally dead person from access to the basic necessities of life.
Any system which makes it so the state can (intentionally or by accident) prevent you from being able to obtain basic necessities for yourself is not a good one, especially if it'd be possible to pretend your genocide is just a massive clerical error that merely happened to take you years to correct.
RTFAing says that one of the benefits they're claiming is that this will fix India's endemic government corruption. The only way to get rid of corruption in the state is to ensure that corrupt officials are likely to be caught, that the penalty is significant, and that there is as little benefit to being corrupt as possible. (The more power they have, the better the odds need to be of a corrupt official being the guest of honor at a surprise necktie party.)
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It's not that bad. Since it takes 2 days at police station to get VISA cleared for leaving the country legally, you need to anticipate 1-2 weeks at police station to be cleared of being legally dead. What is bad is that by paying money, you can make it in just a wee hours. People much more friendly than in the West though, generally.
Try 19 years to get it cleared up, and the official only needing about a US$20 bribe to declare him legally dead in the first place. [wikipedia.org]
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Any system which makes it so the state can (intentionally or by accident) prevent you from being able to obtain basic necessities for yourself is not a good one, especially if it'd be possible to pretend your genocide is just a massive clerical error that merely happened to take you years to correct.
Like pen and paper? Typewriters? News flash: genocide, repression, and caste systems, are not high tech affairs. See for example, every genocide repression caste system ever.
Sorry, I assumed that it was reasonably obvious that 'any system' would include the low tech ones as well. But if you want to get into the nasty parts, it's relatively well-established that the world will ignore its agreement that genocides--strictly defined as government-run obviously-intentional slaughters of an entire people--are bad and should be stopped, and the only reason to bother much with providing a plausible excuse is to make it slightly less obvious that they don't actually care.
High tech is u
Re: That's great (Score:2)
yeah, like most of the white western countries have their racism against anyone brown or black
Not even close.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] should solve corruption in India
Modi and corruption (Score:3)
Most western countries essentially have this (Score:4, Informative)
All sorts of official activity here in Norway is linked to my "fødselsnummer", essentially my DOB + a 5-digit code to make it unique assigned at birth. Immigrants and others with business in Norway get a D-number which is the same only in a different number series. Can't open a bank account, can't pay taxes, can't own property, can't really do anything official without it. That was all well and good, but then the US started pushing for biometric passports and around here a country is the size of a US state so practically everybody has to have a passport. So since 2010 that all goes into a big database and since you have to renew them every ten years it's now pretty much the entire population. The only thing that prevent them from using it like in India is the law, all the data is already connected and linked.
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The only thing that prevent them from using it like in India is the law, all the data is already connected and linked.
I'm sure our best people will be happy to teach your law enforcement all about parallel construction. (I imagine we're probably better at it than most, because most of the places it's scarier to be than the USA don't bother justifying what they're doing.)
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how is it news? (Score:3)
This system has been working for a long while. It had already went through massive data leaks in 2017
Singapore has it, sweden has it... (Score:3, Informative)
Undernourished Children (Score:1)
The meals for undernourished children do not reach the undernourished children. Biometric verification will ensure that the food was really fed to the child and not sold out for money. If you've got a tougher idea then please reply.
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How would that work? 'All undernourished, line up and get a plate of food when you've passed the fingerprint scanner'?
With corruption, it'll be 'All undernourished, line up for the fingerprint scanner'. Then they get a quarter plate of food, the rest being sold for profit. Or perhaps they organize it like a lottery, so a few of those scanned 'wins' some food. With stricter control, the kid gets his plate of food, but will have to 'donate' most of it around the corner if he don't want to be hit with that ba
Press here to play (Score:2)
'Big Brother' In India Requires Fingerprint Scans For Food, Phones, Finances
Wow. Foreign TV shows [wikipedia.org] are weird.
USA Prejudices (Score:1)
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That's because you're a sheep or a shill or both.
This is the definition of evil. A government exists for the people. Not just the people who are "lawful citizens", but all the people within it's borders that it is privileged enough to serve. If it doesn't want to serve certain people, it should eject those people and simply cite the racism of the majority.
Government exists because some things are easier to handle as a large group and thus it maintains a monopoly on violence and monopoly on justice. If y
The weird priorities of Indian governments (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you want to open a bank account, you will need to have an ID ...
... if you open a credit ... you will be registered at the National Bank ... ...
If you want to buy a phone, you need to have an ID
... if people receive benefits from the state (and that is what we are talking about) ...
One who opens an account with a private bank does not "receive benefits from the state".
One who purchases a phone from a private retailer, and receives wireless service from a private telecommunications provider, does not "receive benefits from the state".
Requiring ID to prove that one qualifies for tax-subsidized welfare programs is one thing. Mandating state-issued ID for private services is an entirely different matter. (Nationalising banking and telecommunications services such that there is no private
Horrifying. (Score:2)
Not a future I'd want any part of.
I wish the Indian opponents of this the best of luck stopping it.
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not really, these people want to sponge off others, they have no right to complain of needing to be on file to combat fraud and double dipping. It's the price one pays to be a parasite
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Oh and of course people who think like you, when this comes to your country, will be shocked and appalled when they're required to be subjected to it, because you somehow magically think you'll be exempted from it, like you're special or something. Well guess what? You'll be treated like a convict or an animal in a zoo like everyone else, and you
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What are you blathering about, this is for welfare recipients. I am one of the people who pays the bills. It's long overdue here, the fraud is rampant and much higher than your made-up stat you pulled out of your ass.
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The country is reportedly "scanning the fingerprints, eyes and faces of its 1.3 billion residents (alternative source) and connecting the data to everything from welfare benefits to mobile phones."
Try reading at least the headline before shooting your mouth off, idiot.
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those phone number are for part of receiving welfare benefits. There have been article here before about that including Facebook trying Indian system for user ID, but you have the attention span and intellectual capabilities of a gnat
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the part where those who ACTUALLY are made to sign up are receiving government welfare. but you only read dumbed-down articles
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]