Weighing the Pros and Cons of the National Id card scheme will allow us to assess the costs and benefits of the National ID card project, enabling us to conclude whether the project should be implemented or not and what manner of fail safes and inbuilt corrective mechanisms are required.
The main costs in implementing a national ID card project include the huge administrative and logistical costs of collecting the required data from India’s 60,000 plus villages and massive cities as well as authenticating and validating this information. Maintaining the UID database is another huge cost and ensuring the efficient and timely production of the physical ID cards with accurate stored bio metric data is another large complication. Dividing up the task between numerous software firms is a way in which costs can be reduced and efficiency can be increased but privacy and the protection of data becomes a worrying issue.
The benefits of implementing a national ID card include an enhanced ability to identify and provide services to individuals below the poverty line, a foundation for the implementation of numerous schemes such as the Citizens Smart Card Project which lead to enhanced governance with reduced costs, elimination of the need for multiple identification mechanisms and the reduced costs associated with such streamlining, a comprehensive voter ID system reducing the current costs associated with authenticating voters at polling station, checks against illegal immigration enabling more efficient border control systems and a large boost to the IT industry as such a large scale project will certainly facilitate the growth of the industry providing employment and resources for research and development as firms develop systems which can be used to implement the national ID card database.
In order to deal with the worrying issue of privacy and the possibility of the data stored on the UID database being exploited, comprehensive rules and regulations must be put in place regarding the sharing and access of information data stored on the database. A body must be created which reviews the national ID cards effects on the privacy of citizens and the security of the information stored on the database. Proper legislation must be created which protects the privacy of individuals by mandating harsh penalties for groups or individuals who attempt to access or abuse the database and a body with the expertise to enforce such regulation must be established, a cyber police force of sorts.
If such measures are put in place to protect the sensitive data stored on the UID card database, the implementation of the National ID card could occur with less risk to the citizens who would be a part of the system and with a coherent, structured and efficient implementation program the benefits of the National ID card system certainly seem to outweigh the costs and potential risks. Even after taking all of this into account, we must remember that the national ID card is still in the early stages of its implementation and there is still time to, as Nanden Nilekani puts it, "balance the benefits with the risks.” and ensure the National ID card system is a success.
Admittedly, I haven't read your whole blog, but the way you describe it in this post makes the benefits of the National ID card system seem pretty worth it. However, I think the point you bring up at the end is very important.
ReplyDelete>>"...there is still time to, as Nanden Nilekani puts it, 'balance the benefits with the risks.'"
I think this is so important because, as with most new technologies, many potential problems that were unforeseeable will likely arise after the implementation of the ID system. The longer that people think about the potential problems and exploitations, hopefully the more of these problems will be avoided.
As you mention, some sort of control agency must be necessary. A worry I have is that exploiters may be too swift for any sort of control agency that can stop them. Agencies may be able to effectively punish the parties responsible for harm, but that's not to say that those parties may cause the harm before they are caught. On the other hand, this is the unavoidable concern with any crime, no matter how petty.
I didn't know much about this topic until you presented it in class, but I think it's a really cool idea! I think that the pros still outweigh the cons, so I hope this idea is implemented some time in the future! :)
A good summary analysis of the pros and cons
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