Sri Lanka SHOULD NOT GIVE INDIA biometric access to NIC data
Sri Lanka’s cabinet appears to only nod for everything bad proposed. This time round it is to outsource Sri Lanka’s NIC cards to India. It is one of the most bizarre decisions and likely to have serious implications. There should be a limit to compromising a nation’s national security & sovereignty just because nation’s hand grants, loans & credit lines. The access to biometrics has to be taken alongside giving India to issue visa thus a private company walking off with all profits which has been done all these years by Sri Lankan officials. There are many reasons why India should not be given access to data of Sri Lankan citizens but the President, the Government or even the Opposition seems to care less & are happy to either nod in approval or simply not voice objection except to fool the masses on election stages.
Thousands of fingerprints & facial images and personal information (fingerprints, facial scan images, signatures, tattoos, scars on bodies of law enforcement officials & people applying to join the Indian police. No sooner these details were exposed, cybercriminals got to work advertising the sale of biometric police data from India on messaging app Telegram.
If that was not enough India created a database of 1billion citizens. It was known as Aadhaar database. It boasted of being the world’s largest biometric identity program & claimed Indians could easily access subsidies & pension payments using fingerprints & iris scans. It started as a voluntary system but became quasi-mandatory though it was unregulated. This is what caused the data leaks & degraded biometrics as well as expose identities of people. Data errors & inability for redress, lack of transparency & accountability are key issues in the Indian system. An audit by the Comptroller & General Auditor disclosed that the system failed to properly regulate its client vendors & secure the security of their data vaults.
Then the Election Commission of India decided to link their voter registration database with Aadhaar which also raised the issue of privacy. In 2021, the Lok Sabha passed the Election Laws Amendment Bill enabling the integrating of the Election Commission database with the Aadhaar database. Critics pointed out that the database would result in voter micro targeting, as well as being insecure when multiple private & public actors are involved in the networks & database setting. When private parties are given to handle the Electoral management system, this information can be misused by the private parties involved & thus compromise the privacy of the voters. Even India’s civil society has objected to such a merger.
Sri Lankans must be vary that personal data of a billion Indians were sold online for £6 as a result of the leaks in the Aadhaar database which collects photographs, thumbprints, retina scans & other details of Indian citizens. Not only have details of Indians being leaked, the leaks have enabled fake Aadhaar cards to be prepared & used to solicit fake benefits that deny the original user who may not have recourse to regain what he/she has lost. People were buying information for just Rs.500 of other people’s personal data.
Do we want this to happen for Sri Lankans if Indians are given access to our biometrics – all our personal data are leaked to the world?
Shenali D Waduge
