Here’s some great news. Apparently, the Government will not be issuing any National ID card at all, but rather a stand alone number. Even better, it will not be compulsory. So that rules out stopping people on the road and asking them for their card randomly.
Image Credit: Elliot Moore
Indian National ID NOT compulsory!
This removes the teeth from the whole idea and is a much better system. Something like the SSN in the US. Apparently the ID number is so that other departments can make use of it in any manner they wish. This means that (hopefully), the databases of the various ministries will not be linked together and that the Indian Government won’t be able to keep track of all the details of our lives.
I wonder why this clarification was made. Probably because someone realized that it’s too difficult to implement otherwise! Or maybe there was resistance from the various ministries who saw their own ID systems under threat. Either way, it’s a fantastic development, and one over which we should all heave a collective sigh.
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[...] who are unable to obtain an ID or have lost their card. Incidentally, since we have seen that the Indian National ID will not be incorporating a card, how are they going to ensure that people know their Unique ID? More details will emerge on this [...]
[...] their own IDs and now we’re told they’ll be phased out. We were told the UID would be voluntary with no card at all, and now we find that we have to give our fingerprints whenever we show our regular IDs and that [...]