To provide a bit of reality check in relation to your answers:
1. This Govt. has, in a recent affidavit to the Supreme Court, claimed the Aadhaar database has never been hacked.
2. Other government agencies — including state governments and the National Informatics Centre have made Aadhaar details and data public, or accessible publicly.
In the case of the National Informatics Centre, supposed to be "the premier science & technology organisation of Government of India in informatics services and information and communication technology (ICT) applications" and is "a part of the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's Department of Electronics & Information Technology", an API proxy to the Aadhaar eKYC service was made available on the public internet:
i. With an HTTP, not HTTPS, endpoint;
ii. With a single auth-token, used for all calls to this API proxy, embedded in an Android app the NIC put out;
iii. That was abused publicly by someone for their Android app providing access to "demographic data like name, address, phone number of individuals" without any authorization required.
3. There are no existing data privacy laws. There are no laws to punish, or even state what can be done, in situations of data breach.
4. The Govt. is just now in the beginning stages of forming data protection laws.
> 1. This Govt. has, in a recent affidavit to the Supreme Court, claimed the Aadhaar database has never been hacked.
> 2. Other government agencies — including state governments and the National Informatics Centre have made Aadhaar details and data public, or accessible publicly.
So that means the government has been truthful? As soon as they start lying we'll have the recourse of suing. Don't worry.
Ineptness of government agencies is there in everything. Trains run late and the bathrooms smell. Doesn't mean we need to shut it all down. We carry on and try our best to improve things. Laws will slowly but surely catch up. Enforcement will catch up. This is the only way we can progress.
I made no such assessments; I only laid out the facts as I found them. If you ask me for such an opinion, I'd call it technically correct and disingenuous; like claiming the left hand didn't steal what the right hand did, when the person themself is suspected of thievery.
> Laws will slowly but surely catch up. Enforcement will catch up.
Sure. But the mad rush to get everyone on the system by force should come strictly after these.
> Doesn't mean we need to shut it all down.
I did not call for anything in the slightest to this effect. I was merely laying out the facts.
Trust is the whole problem. Many like you trust this government (why is something I can't understand, other than their effective propaganda, but let's leave it at that). But there are many who don't. It's not just about privacy, it's also about things like fear, religious profiling, autocratic tendencies, curbing of freedoms. It's also not about just the current government, but of governments to come. A non-mandatory aadhar would give those who don't trust the system
a choice to remain out of its programmes and perhaps voluntarily pay higher costs or forego any benefits. But this government has not given any such choice. It's deeply discomforting to be forced to give all this information to an entity one doesn't trust.
Treating the Aadhar authority as a partisan object is to make a mistake.
It was conceived by the Congress, and as an agency, it is designed to survive all normal parties which come to power.
It is more an arm of the Government of India, its bureaucracy and underlying machinery - than a political function of whoever is the ruling party at the time.
To discuss of it in terms of parties, is to pretty much fall into one of its defensive design patterns - because this agency is designed to appeal to any party in power.
A significant amount of design and political thought has gone into this agency, and in the way it has strategically expanded its remit and powers.
In short - UIDAI was designed from to avoid the political pitfalls of modern India and exist forever.
Its only real weakness is scrutiny of its results and methods, and its eventual necessity to handle actual crisis.
Do note, that this has already been planned for, because the Agency is designed to push responsibility away from itself, - instead it gives people the ability to use their APIs and take the responsibility on themselves.
Please do not make the mistake of conflating the ruling party with the machinery of the Government of India.
Aadhar is a child of the GoI. It has enjoyed support by both parties, and was the brainchild of the previous Majority member in the coalition.
I assure you, that any and all hopes vis-a-vis aadhar, placed on the ruling party are in vain.
This is exactly the kind of scenario that Americans would be afraid of - a shadowy government organization, which runs constantly, despite any person or party who is in or is not in, power.
That is what the Aadhar authority is, and always has been.
They have a product they can offer all successive governments, which will ensure its continued survival.
The party in power is irrelevant.
I know how partisan political discussions get, which is why I am highlighting this point. IT doesn't matter who is in power.
No, that would be a ridiculous thing to be confident about.
> Are we prepared to face such situation?
I hope so. I have trust in this admin a bit more than previous ones. But long-term, I don't know.
> Would the government let you know if the database ever got hacked?
They are bound to respond to an RTI inquiry.
> What guarantees do we have that the politicians won't use it for their advantage?
None, just like anything else. Just the assurance that we all get to vote them out if we want.