Thread by @SFLCin

Day 21 of final #Aadhaar hearing to begin shortly. Attorney General will resume his submissions from yesterday.

AG hands over the PowerPoint presentation in word format.

Bench agrees for PowerPoint presentation. Tells petitioners to submit a questionnaire based on the presentation.

There's some discussion on getting the equipment for the PowerPoint presentation.

Judges and petitioners are going through the word document of the presentation.

The presentation will take place at 2.30. CJI asks AG to continue with other arguments.

AG again quotes World Bank report and it's sustainable development goals. Talks about the paramount importance of unique identity and eradication of poverty.

AG continues reading the report

AG still reading out the ID4D intergration approach report.
Justice Chandrachud asks if enrollment and authentication services under Aadhaar are free. AG says yes.

AG concludes the report. Says the goal is to have legal unique identity for all by 2030.

AG takes the bench through the history of the Aadhaar program.

AG says that the Aadhaar is a well thought out project. Various committees and groups of the Government have been working on it since 2006.

J. Sikri: What is the point of going through all these dates? We are just discussing the legal validity of the Act.

J. Chandrachud: What took the government seven years to pass this Act?

Bench rises for lunch. State will give a presentation on Aadhaar at 2.30 pm.

CEO of UIDAI, Ajaya Bhushan Pandey commences his PowerPoint presentation on #Aadhar

Says he'll talk about Aadhaar security, success rates, etc

ABP: In pre Aadhaar times, most people didn't have IDs. Even I didn't have an ID since I come from a small village. From 2000-09 also, people didn't have IDs. Voter ID also doesn't solve the problem. Children can't get it.

ABP: Getting a ration card was also difficult because it required other IDs to procure a ration card.

ABP: Voter id and ration cards are region specific. It's not nationally accepted.

ABP: Aadhaar is nationally verifiable digital ID. It's not difficult to procure. Genuineness of ration card is not easy to ascertain.

ABP: 12 digit no.is a completely random no. Once issued, it's never issued again, even if the person dies.
We did not want to link it with citizenship and includes transgenders and children.

ABP: People may not be able to provide biometrics due to reasons like leprosy, but we have made exceptions for such cases.

ABP: Enrollment and updation can happen in any part of the country. It's a portable entitlement. Not region specific, unlike other IDs.
There's no data sharing without consent.

ABP: only on the instructions of district judge and for national security, data is shared.

ABP takes the court through the process of enrollment.
Says even father's name is not necessary. No info on religion, caste etc is collected.

ABP: in the US, to get a birth certificate, a lot of information is collected. Even info like the kind of pregnancy is taken.

ABP explains how there is no de- duplication of Aadhaar. J. Chandrachud asks for clarification on biometrics exception for people who can't possibly give their biometrics.
ABP says authentication will happen through otp in such cases. Refers to Aadhaar Authentication Regs.

ABP elucidates on the types of authentication mechanisms available under the Act.

ABP: Enrollment agencies are both public and private. We empanel these agencies based on certain criteria. Then registrars decide of an agency is fit to be an enrollment agency.

ABP: We have operator certification agencies along with 30k enrollment centres. Decentralized enrollment, but the data is stored in a centralized place. There's a safe button with enrollment agencies to encrypt data (2048-bit)

ABP: It'll require the strength of the entire universe to break that encryption!

ABP: Traceability of all actors is ensured through audit trail.
J. Sikri: Why did you de register so many agencies then?
ABP says it was due to corruption mostly. Also some operators were not entering the details properly. Says that they have very strict quality control standards

J. Sikri: It's incomprehensible that 49,000 people fall in that category.
ABP reiterates that they have high quality parameters.

ABP: 120.3 cr have enrolled. we enrol children as soon as they are born. We don't take biometrics of the infant. Only photograph is taken. Biometrics of parents are collected. At the age of 5, we take the child's biometrics and then again at age 15

J. Sikri: Do you contact the child or do they have to come to you? This was one of the arguments related to exclusion.
ABP says that anganwadi workers themselves become enrollers. Also, enrollment camps are set up in schools.

ABP gives details on Aadhaar customer care and how to locate Aadhaar agencies. He's trying to show that the Aadhaar ecosystem is very sophisticated

J. Chandrachud: What happens when a person's biometrics change? For eg, for workers and labourers.
ABP says that people can go to enrolment centres and get their details updated.
J. Sikri: Many people might not know that their biometrics have changed. What do they do?

ABP says that in such cases, a person goes for authentication, for example to a PDS shop and his Biometrics don't match, then an error code is sent to UIDAI and then the person will be asked to update his biometrics.

J. Chandrachud is not convinced with this method. Says this will lead to exclusion.

ABP:A circular was issued yesterday, which said that if a person's authentication through biometrics does not happen, then he shall not be denied benefits for that reason.

ABP: Every Aadhaar card has a QR code, which prevents de duplication. The QR code will also show the person's photo. This method can also be resorted to if biometrics don't match.

J. Chandrachud: You'll know when there's an authentication failure in your database, but you won't know if there has been denial of service.
ABP says that we tell entities to make exception handling measures.
J. Chandrachud asks if there is any data on denial of services.

ABP says Aadhaar enrollment is done in prison also.

ABP says we are starting enrollment centres in banks and post offices.
ABP says enrollment and updation of Aadhaar is a continuing process.
The total cost of an aadhaar card is less than one dollar.

J. Khanwilkar: Other side claims that Aadhaar software is designed outside india, and is prone to tampering.
ABP: only biometrics matching software has been taken from the world's best companies. Rest has been developed in India.

ABP: But servers are ours. We have 6000 servers. Just because we are using the services of these companies, doesn't mean that they have our data. The biometrics is also anonymized (by a reference no.) before it's matched against the biometrics stored in the central database.

ABP explains the entire process of enrollment.

ABP takes the court through the e-kyc process using Aadhaar.

ABP says that till now no agency has taken biometrics data for the purpose of national security. Had denied data to CBI also.

ABP: We have registered devices for authentication. The devices use our key for encryption. The biometrics is not shared with the requesting entity also. Authentication process takes less than a second. We don't collect purpose, location and details of the transaction.

J. Chandrachud: what about metadata?
ABP says he'll explain that later.

ABP: we are doing four crore authentications everyday. We don't know the purpose of these authentications. Information remains in the silos and merging of silos is also prohibited.

Bench rises for the day.