Thread by @VakashaS

At Supreme Court for @UIDAI presentation on #Aadhaar. This is going to be riveting stuff, I'm sure.

Great start as one of the projectors which is supposed to show the presentation to the petitioners and public isn't working. Go @UIDAI ! Technological competence ftw #Aadhaar

Now @ceo_uidai is enthralling us all. Did you know that identification is crucial to services? Did you also know that before 2009, people didn't have any form of ID? #Aadhaar to the rescue!

Oh no, people didn't know how to get IDs! They needed some form of ID for getting an ID! Ration cards and voter ID cards couldn't be used everywhere! @ceo_uidai 's niece had trouble while trying to do an internship! This was why they realised that #Aadhaar were the only solution!

We're getting told now how awesome #Aadhaar is and how secure it is. Noone can share your information! We've leapfrogged everyone by going from no ID to online ID, no paper ID in between! This is perfectly reasonable and in no way raises doubts about readiness for implementation!

Nobody knows all of this stuff about #Aadhaar ! It's incredible! They take only a few details! They take fingerprints and iris scans and minimal democratic stuff. If you have leprosy and neither of their biometric markers can be collected, then photo is enough. Thanks @UIDAI !

Hey @SurakshaP_tnie , you remember all that incredible journalism you did about #Aadhaar exclusion for leprosy patients? All unnecessary, acc to @ceo_uidai , because they can give Aadhaar without it! Yay! Let's forget that rules for this have been sub-delegated and don't exist!

Did you know why they had to use random private agencies to collect all that sensitive, personal data? Because to do it through govt servants would take too long. So they got the Registrars who they did have some control over, to get an #Aadhaar themselves! Security worries gone!

Did you know that their awesome 2048 key encryption for #Aadhaar can't be broken by the most powerful supercomputer in the world if given the lifespan of the universe? No, really. Sure @fs0c131y can confirm this, right?

Oh by the way, all those 49000 private operators whose contacts they terminated, that was only because they were demanding money for enrolment, not for #Aadhaar data breaches. Don't be like Justice Sikri and question how plausible that is. @ceo_uidai has all the answers, ok? Ok

Oh yay, the other projector is now working! See the technological might of @UIDAI ? Oh ye of little faith...

Awwww! Photographs of #Aadhaar enrolments! Even newborn babies can get them, see photos! Boo, Justice Chandrachud, don't be a spoilsport and point out that this doesn't meet the residence requirements, and goes against what @UIDAI told the World Bank.

Now @ceo_uidai is tackling the problem of children. You know how #Aadhaar isn't supposed to be for kids below the age of 5? They send representatives to enrol kids through angaanwadis and schools without asking for parents' permissions. Don't look so shocked, Justice DYC!

Hey, you know all those media reports about people not getting PDS rations because of #Aadhaar authentication failures? No worries, an *drum roll* error report gets sent to the @UIDAI ! So no worries. You won't be denied your rations!

Section 7 of the #Aadhaar Act 2016 says you can use other IDs, right? @UIDAI has sent circulars also to say this, which obviously overrule the rules made by government agencies which mandate #Aadhaar and nothing else. Plus, QR code!

Don't know why Justice Chandrachud asks all these inconvenient questions. Sure, the failure report to @UIDAI only tells them an authentication failure had happened, not whether stuff was denied. But @UIDAI told them not to deny, na?

Now Justice Sikri is asking questions again, about all that Jharkhand fake news. Don't these people know that in those cases the biometrics actually matched? And the shopkeeper unscrupulously said come tomorrow despite this? Forget those sworn affidavits, @ceo_uidai knows truth

Now we're hearing how the @ceo_uidai used to go collect rations for his own family back in the day. In all of this, everyone has forgotten that Justice Chandrachud asked for the figures on #Aadhaar authentication failures leading to denial of service. EVERYONE HAS FORGOTTEN

Total cost of each #Aadhaar card is less than $1, you hear that people? Enrolment, update, the works. Doesn't that make you feel secure? And all software done here. #MakeInIndia ftw!

Eh, why is this Justice Khanwilkar pointing out that the software wasn't developed in India. Ok, so we licenced some stuff like the biometric matching software from three reputed international companies. We have 6000 servers! 6000!

Now we shall subtly obfuscate the fact that this shoots down the claim that all software made in India, and instead focus on how foreign peeps including those companies don't have access to the #Aadhaar data.

We've been told in full detail, with laser pointer used to point to blobs on the projector, how #Aadhaar enrolment happens, and leads to completely unique identity.

Now we're learning about the authentication process from @ceo_uidai. Everyone is spellbound. There's the first encryption. Then the next. Then the next, etc. "The journey from here to here and back here takes milliseconds".

When authenticating #Aadhaar, purpose of transaction not told to @UIDAI . Again Justice Chandrachud asks irritating questions about metadata which doesn't need to be answered, of course. Nobody'll care about that when they learn @UIDAI database does 4 crore authentications daily.

Oh no! We can't continue the great @ceo_uidai #Aadhaar presentation today! Cries of anguish ring out in court as CJI adjourns the case till Tuesday. Everyone is devastated. We were learning so much. And realising how this case is so unnecessary.