India’s relations with global firms are getting increasingly clouded by distrust as officials keep making more unreasonable demands. Top global smartphone makers like Apple and Google are unlikely to respond kindly to India’s request (or demand?) to modify their operating systems and devices to allow Aadhaar authentication securely. Smartphones are the absolute future for India as a basic device that a majority of its billion-plus mobile users will own soon as prices steadily fall. What the government is trying to do is further its aims in Aadhaar by getting its citizens’ identity established by global entities, which obviously don’t see eye to eye with India in matters such as breaching individuals’ privacy. India’s Aadhaar, with 90 per cent adults already compliant, set up an efficient methodology to establish the identity of a population exceeding 1.25 billion, and not just to weed out duplication in government subsidies like the public distribution system of essentials and LPG. There is also concern over intrusions into the privacy of individuals in gathering biometric data for Aadhaar, though it’s really criminals who have more to fear.
Where official India is going wrong is equating every Indian with the small percentage who are ripping off subsidies. The request to global firms to help India do its job is part of the process of establishing control over erring citizens. Such distrust was evident in frequent government moves to request taking down social media posts considered offensive, inflammatory or incendiary, but too many of them were aimed at criticism or lampooning of politicians rather than security and communal issues. Given such a background of official India trying to control access to databanks by urging global players like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to set up servers on Indian soil, the reluctance of global players to any such initiative is understandable. Apple built its own ecosystem, and close rival Google, which powers Android phones, has built a revenue model based on hardware safe zones they offer their clientele.
Some who make devices in India like Samsung, Lenovo and Micromax may oblige for market reasons, but this must be weighed against security risks. The Aadhaar database has a huge amount of sensitive data about which UIDAI must be extremely cautious. To allow access to metadata of personal information to mobile phone makers, operating system vendors and even ISPs entails a huge security risk. To allow organic growth of Aadhaar as the definitive Indian identity system would be the wiser course and our domestic banking systems and mobile phone sellers can build their own secure systems. The global players will fall in line with Aadhaar when market forces become persuasive. The larger question is to ensure the security of a precious database.
