[Reader-list] Privacy, Surveilance and Identity Cards
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
shuddha at sarai.net
Tue May 29 20:54:49 IST 2001
Dear Readers,
I have been looking recently at all the ways which we are being looked at
by the unblinking eye of the state.
Partly, this came about as a result of the recent postings on this list
regarding privacy issues, and my own earlier queries about the ways in
which online and offline life are sometimes coterminous.
Also, I have been reading a book by Simon Davies, called :
"Big Brother - Britain's Web of Surveillance and the New Technological
Order". (Pan, 1996)
ISBN 0 330 33556 1
The book offers a very detailed insight into new technologies of
surveillance and the impact that they are having and can have on our
everyday lives. For a very comprehensive review of this book, I would
recommend a visit to a review essay by Ian Lloyed on the website of the
Journal of Information, Law and Technology at
http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/BookRev/3lloyd/default.htm
Anyway, having read and thought about all this, I wondered if it would be
at all useful to check if similar things were happening in India. My
assumption was, they can't be happening here, how can the huge
technological infrastructure necessary for a massive surveillance state be
set up in Indian conditions.
Unfortunately, I have to inform you all, that my preliminary (and
superficial) investigations on the web in this regard, proved my assumption
absolutely wrong.
I want to share with you my findings,
There are very comprehensive plans being made for a massive "citizens
database" to be owned and operated by the state. For some reason
(intra-governmental) this could not be done in sync with the recently
conducted census, but census data will no doubt be used for building this
data base. This excercise will climax in a scheme variously called NISHAN
(national identification system home affairs network) or the INDIA CARD, by
which all citizens will have to carry identity cards containing all
relevant information (including legal records) about them, identifying
photographs and bio metric date (data about their body measurements, hand
prints etc.)
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has commissioned Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS), a software consutancy multinational based in India, to do
a feasability study for the National ID card scheme.The TCS report suggests
that the whole excercise be made market friendly, and that the state
actually make money out of it by selling information that it gathers about
citizens to corporate bodies,. This will no doubt be seen as a gem of 'self
sufficiency' inducing mechanisms of state control.
To find out more about NISHAN read the following news reports :
(Dataquest Magazine) http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_stories/101022206.asp
(Hindustan Times)http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/170900/detFEA03.asp
There is another proposal (the INDIA Card Scheme)put forward by a private
Bangalore based company (Shonkh Technologies International Ltd.) which
will no doubt be a major player in terms of making a bid for actually
executing this scheme on an India wide basis.
to find ou more about this, visit the Shonkh Technologies website at
http://www.shonkh.com/indiacard.html
In fact the first instance of a comprehensive national
computerized identity card system has been tried out in Thailand where it
is now in operation. It is not always the industrialized west that takes
quickest to the dissemination of high tech surveillance schemes on a
'nation' wide basis. Modernizing elites in the so called 'Third World' are
often better placed (due to lack of constiutional safeguards to privacy, or
lack of awareness at the public level of privacy issues) to put in place
'technologies of mass surveillance'.
For an analysis of the politics of Privacy and Surveillance, go to the
Privacy International Website at
http://www.privacyinternational.org/
for a good summary of the politics of Online Privacy Issues, go to the
Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC) webpage on "Privacy and Human
Rights" at
http://www.gilc.org/privacy/survey/
For an "India Country Report on Privacy Issues" at the GILC site, go to
http://www.gilc.org/privacy/survey/surveyak.html#India
Now , an identity card scheme always looks innocuous, but its implications
are very dangerous. Information about each of us is scattered in various
data banks, these could be - police records, medical records, electoral
registers, taxation records, etc. Their collation in a single database, means
(I) the entries in one set of data can influence other, unrelated parameters.
(let me give you a hypothetical example - for instance, a centralized
electoral roll could register whether or not someone has voted in any
electoral excercise, I for instance, don't vote. now if 'not voting' were
ever to be rendered a disqualifying factor in any other circumstance -
applying for a passport, a phone, a gas connection, applying for a job -
then my non voting behaviour would show up, every timne i did either of
those other things. So I go for a job interview, I am asked for my
NISHAN/INDIA card, which I submit, it reveals that I have not voted. So, I
get disqualified as a non active citizen, I dont get the job.
(II) a huge invasion of privacy gets legitimized, suppose i am HIV
positive, and my medical records register that on to my card, I try and get
a house on rent, new regulations stipulate that all landlords have to have
prospective tenants cross checked at the local police station, how do they
do that, simple they ask for your NISHAN card, and run it across their
machine which hooks up to the centralized database, and of course it
reveals that I am HIV positive.The landlord, the police station knows i am
HIV positve, I dont get to be the tenant they choose.
Consider that the Indian Constitution does not recognise the Right to
Privacy as a fundamental right.
Consider also that the state will (if this scheme gets underway) to farm
and manipulate data about citizens
Consider also that those who will not get the cards (perhpas they are
emigrants or refugees) will now have to face considerable police
harrassment at day to day levels because they will not be able to produce
their cards when they are stopped on the streets.
For more on ID cards ( A FAQ, campaigns against ID cards and personal
testimonies against ID cards) go to
http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/idcard/ (in the Privacy International
site)
Cards and Databases are only one part of the excercise in surveillance.
In a fascinating document, that I came across recently, there is clear
indication that the surveillance trade in India is going to be a real boom
industry. theres is an expected annual increase demand of 25% each year in
the sale of closed circuit television cameras in India in the next few
years. This is big money.
Surveillance Cameras are already making their entry into our lives at
various major traffic intersections and in all of central new delhi, as
well as in banks, apartments, offices and industrial areas. If you couple
pattern recognition systems on to video surveillance footage, then you have
the surveillance camera meeting the identity card in a database somewhere
in a government mainframe. It is most likely that people like you and me
will get caught in the corssfire between the huge arrays of data produced
by "citizen databases" and surveillance technologies.
for a excerpt from a report pn Surveillance Equipment and the rising demand
for it in India go to
http://www.policeinindia.com/fire.htm
Incidentally, the kind of people who sell surveillance equipment are also
often the kind of peoplke who sell torture equipment (electrical
applaiances) which goes under the name of 'crime control' equipment. If
you look hard enough on the internet you will find the same companies
selling this kind of stuff in India, Turkey, Brazil, and other developing
democracies.
Finally, I would like to mention the fact that the information gathering
apparatus acts concretely and at the most everyday and intimate level.
Police stations across the country are now going to ask us about
(i) the people who visit us or work in our homes
(ii) the strangers we meet and befriend
(ii) guests who happen to be non indian nationals
they need to know all this for the sake of something called national
security...
failure to give this information over, we are told, are offences punishable
with imprisonment, and fines or both.
If you want to know what a police identification form of a 'floating
population' looks like -download this marvellous form prepared by (in this
instance, the cybersavvy) Chandigarh Police at -
http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/idcard/
http://chandigarhpolice.nic.in/vschandigarhpolice/b_form_4.pdf
national security = personal insecurity
Cheers
Shuddha
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
SARAI: The New Media Initiative
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India
www.sarai.net
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