UIDAI and the textbook case study of how not to do it, one for the business schools

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) came under attack. Its very existence was threatened. Naturally enough, UIDAI decided to defend itself.

It's worked. UIDAI survives for the moment.

But theirs is a Pyrrhic victory. The UIDAI defence could undermine the credibility of every public authority in the world which has nailed its colours to the mast of biometrics – which is most of them – and could destroy the multi-billion dollar mass consumer biometrics industry.

The job of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is to use biometrics to identify every resident of India and to issue them with a unique corresponding number, a so-called "Aadhaar number".

"Aadhaar" means foundation or support and the idea is that, once everyone has an identifying number, it will be easier for the various arms of government to build systems on that foundation to provide social security benefits, for example, and to facilitate national security. And beyond government, the banks will supposedly find it easier to authenticate payments.

UIDAI is not without its critics:

• The Standing Committee on Finance (SCoF), a committee of the Indian Parliament, has considered the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010. That Bill would establish UIDAI on a statutory basis if it was ever enacted, but it hasn't been. Meanwhile, UIDAI is operating under executive order only. It's not operating very well according to the SCoF report and it's about time UIDAI came under the control of Parliament.
• And then there's the Ministry of Home Affairs. They're a properly constituted body and not just a creature of the Executive. And they have a competing identity management scheme, NPR (the National Population Register). Result – a turf war, Aadhaar v. NPR.

SCoF and the Ministry of Home Affairs pressed their case with the Prime Minister but UIDAI proved too adept for them. The Chairman threatened to resign, which would be embarrassing for the prime Minister – good move no.1. Good move no.2 – UIDAI arranged some convenient PR with the compliant Economist magazine. And then they published not one but two reports making unprecedented claims for the reliability of the biometrics used in Aadhaar:

• Role of Biometric Technology in Aadhaar Enrollment
• India boldly takes biometrics where no country has gone before

Oops. Bad move. There are five problems here:

1. Both reports are produced by UIDAI only. There is no sign that they have been audited by any independent expert body.
2. Both reports quote reliability figures. No other public authority in the world does that. Not operational figures – figures measuring the reliability of biometrics in the field, at the border, for example. They should. But they don't. Now, thanks to UIDAI, they will all come under pressure to quote independently audited figures themselves, figures for reliability, to justify their investment of public funds. It is likely that the public are going to be shocked at just how unreliable the biometrics are, that their governments are using. The public will at last understand why their governments have been so reluctant for so long to quote any figures.
3. Why is that likely? Because the figures quoted by UIDAI are hundreds of times better than anything anyone else has ever claimed following tests of biometrics. Hundreds.
4. The second report says that (a) Aadhaar uses flat print fingerprinting and iris scanning, (b) the two biometrics are fused to form one composite biometric, so-called "multi-modal" biometrics, and (c) UIDAI use not one matching algorithm, but three of them. Any large-scale identity management scheme that doesn't do the same, they say – (a), (b) and (c) – is doomed to "catastrophic failure".
5. The suppliers of biometric technology have never had to give public warranties before. Now they will have to.

Great. Now suppose you're the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. You've spent millions of dollars of public money deploying smart gates at Australian airports as a security measure. These gates depend on face recognition biometrics. Not on UIDAI's list (a). The Australian (and new Zealand) border security system is doomed to "catastrophic failure". Don't take my word for it. Ask UIDAI.

You've spent years refusing to divulge any figures about the reliability of your technology:

Customs refused to disclose the rates at which the system inaccurately identified people. "For security reasons, Customs does not disclose the false positive and false negative rates," a spokesman said.

Now UIDAI have released figures, how are you going to hold the line? You can't.

You could say that UIDAI's figures haven't been audited and may turn out to be false. Now you've got a fight with UIDAI on your hands. And what's the best result you can hope for? UIDAI's figures turn out to be a pack of lies and actually the reliability of Aadhaar is just as appalling as the Australian system. Not what you wanted. It doesn't help to explain why you've been squandering your own citizens' tax money on joke technology.

The same applies to the UK, of course, and our planned deployment of smart gates at airports. Another catastrophic failure? And all those states in the US busy incorporating face recognition biometrics into driving licences. These people – the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, UK Border Agency, et al – are not going to be pleased with UIDAI. UIDAI have let the cat out of the bag and have almost certainly started a fresh collapse of confidence in public administration as a result.

And neither are the biometrics suppliers going to be pleased. How are Morpho going to sell their products now without giving warranties? They're not.

And how are IBM and CSC going to be able to sign any more nine-figure biometrics contracts with credulous governments? They're not.

And how are PA Consulting going to sell any more biometrics assignments? They're not.

UIDAI are going to be persona non grata worldwide. Especially in India, where the Prime Minister may yet regret his decision to carry on funding them. And stop. He may give almost any reason but the big reason, the one several people have pointed out for a long time, is that far from curtailing corruption, Aadhaar was simply going to automate it.

A tragedy with a happy ending, the only people who will be pleased is absolutely everyone else in the world, who can now keep some of their tax money and spend it themselves rather than paying public authorities to waste it for them.

UIDAI's Pyrrhic victory? From now on it's going to be known as an "Aadhaar victory". At least it will when the business schools write it up and teach it all around the world. And when the Economist faithfully report UIDAI's defence, under the heading "Poison pill – that's not the way to do it".

UIDAI and the textbook case study of how not to do it, one for the business schools

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) came under attack. Its very existence was threatened. Naturally enough, UIDAI decided to defend itself.

It's worked. UIDAI survives for the moment.

But theirs is a Pyrrhic victory. The UIDAI defence could undermine the credibility of every public authority in the world which has nailed its colours to the mast of biometrics – which is most of them – and could destroy the multi-billion dollar mass consumer biometrics industry.

GreenInk 5 – The Economist magazine publishes a surprising article

Unpublished:

From: David Moss Sent: 17 January 2012 15:26 To: 'letters@economist.com' Subject: ... seeing what/the man will do/unbribed, there's/no occasion to. http://www.economist.com/comment/1208953#comment-1208953 Sir With their suggestions that only the dimmer Indians have stayed at home, and that Indian men are all ne'er-do-well drunks, and that the blandishments of the snake oil salesmen of the biometrics industry are all credible, last week's articles on India's Unique Identity scheme (14 January 2011: Reform by numbers and The magic number) didn't read like real Economist articles. Were they unflagged advertorials, written by its desperate management, trying to save the fast failing UID project? Yours David Moss

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For information on the Unique Identification of Authority of India and their Aadhaar project, please see India's ID card scheme – drowning in a sea of false positives.

GreenInk 5 – The Economist magazine publishes a surprising article

Unpublished:

From: David Moss Sent: 17 January 2012 15:26 To: 'letters@economist.com' Subject: ... seeing what/the man will do/unbribed, there's/no occasion to. http://www.economist.com/comment/1208953#comment-1208953 Sir With their suggestions that only the dimmer Indians have stayed at home, and that Indian men are all ne'er-do-well drunks, and that the blandishments of the snake oil salesmen of the biometrics industry are all credible, last week's articles on India's Unique Identity scheme (14 January 2011: Reform by numbers and The magic number) didn't read like real Economist articles. Were they unflagged advertorials, written by its desperate management, trying to save the fast failing UID project? Yours David Moss

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For information on the Unique Identification of Authority of India and their Aadhaar project, please see India's ID card scheme – drowning in a sea of false positives.

The Economist magazine's chickens, now on their way home to roost

Normally hard-boiled, The Economist magazine chose to publish a glowing soufflé of a report on the Unique Identification Authority of India in its 14 January 2012 edition. Not surprisingly, this article, The Magic Number, now takes pride of place on UIDAI's website:

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UIDAI website, 1 February 2012

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UIDAI does have its detractors.

"Some of the resistance", The Economist said, "is principled, but much comes from the people who do well out of today’s filthy system. Indian politics hinge on patronage—the doling out of opportunities to rob one’s countrymen. [UIDAI's Aadhaar initiative] would make this harder. That is why it faces such fierce opposition ...".

The resistance to UIDAI at government level comes from the Home Ministry and the Finance Ministry. Are these "the people who do well out of today’s filthy system", as The Economist put it? Are they the ones "doling out of opportunities to rob [their] countrymen"?

The Economist may or may not be wise to jump into bed with UIDAI. But they run the risk – surely quite unnecessarily – of putting some very powerful noses out of joint. No more juicy stories coming their way from the Home Ministry and the Finance Ministry for The Economist any more.

Which is a shame, because there are some good stories around:

• UIDAI are fighting a turf war with the Home Ministry, who have a rival identity management scheme of their own, the National Population Register (NPR).
• And the Finance Ministry were opposed to funding any more work by UIDAI, who were about to run out of money – until the Prime Minister sorted out a (slightly ham-fisted) truce.
• Not only that, but the statutory basis for UIDAI's work is questionable. The National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 still hasn't been enacted.

Why did The Economist do it?

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NB For anyone who reads the articles linked to:

• 1 crore = 10,000,000. 1.2 billion Indians = 1,200,000,000 Indians = 120 crore Indians = 12,000 lakh Indians, because
• 1 lakh = 100,000. 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 1 crore and
• £1 = 78.7618 Rupees

The Economist magazine's chickens, now on their way home to roost

Normally hard-boiled, The Economist magazine chose to publish a glowing soufflé of a report on the Unique Identification Authority of India in its 14 January 2012 edition. Not surprisingly, this article, The Magic Number, now takes pride of place on UIDAI's website:

---

UIDAI website, 1 February 2012

---

UIDAI does have its detractors.

"Some of the resistance", The Economist said, "is principled, but much comes from the people who do well out of today’s filthy system. Indian politics hinge on patronage—the doling out of opportunities to rob one’s countrymen. [UIDAI's Aadhaar initiative] would make this harder. That is why it faces such fierce opposition ...".

The resistance to UIDAI at government level comes from the Home Ministry and the Finance Ministry. Are these "the people who do well out of today’s filthy system", as The Economist put it? Are they the ones "doling out of opportunities to rob [their] countrymen"?

The Economist may or may not be wise to jump into bed with UIDAI. But they run the risk – surely quite unnecessarily – of putting some very powerful noses out of joint. No more juicy stories coming their way from the Home Ministry and the Finance Ministry for The Economist any more.

Which is a shame, because there are some good stories around:

• UIDAI are fighting a turf war with the Home Ministry, who have a rival identity management scheme of their own, the National Population Register (NPR).
• And the Finance Ministry were opposed to funding any more work by UIDAI, who were about to run out of money – until the Prime Minister sorted out a (slightly ham-fisted) truce.
• Not only that, but the statutory basis for UIDAI's work is questionable. The National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 still hasn't been enacted.

Why did The Economist do it?

---

NB For anyone who reads the articles linked to:

• 1 crore = 10,000,000. 1.2 billion Indians = 1,200,000,000 Indians = 120 crore Indians = 12,000 lakh Indians, because
• 1 lakh = 100,000. 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 1 crore and
• £1 = 78.7618 Rupees

The Economist magazine sticks its nose into Indian politics, comes away with egg on its face

After 30 years of reading The Economist, you know what to expect.

The correct answers to most questions are found by letting markets operate freely, as far as The Economist is concerned and politically, that rules out any system that pretends to be able to manage control the economy. The magazine is socially liberal. There's not a hint of racism in it, or sexism – "meritocracy" is the name of the game. Arguments are conducted logically, preferably they're quantitative, the emphasis is on rational management techniques and evidence-based public administration. The magazine is the opposite of insular, open to new ideas wherever they come from, and always up to speed with new technology.

Given which, what on earth happened in the 14 January 2012 edition? It was out of character. Its Scottish Enlightenment body was snatched by aliens. Did The Economist suffer some sort of editorial stroke?

Take a look at The magic number, a leader on Aadhaar, one of India's many identity management schemes, this one operated by the Unique Identification Authority of India, chaired by Nandan Nilekani:

Armed with the system [Aadhaar], India will be able to rethink the nature of its welfare state, cutting back on benefits in kind and market-distorting subsidies, and turning to cash transfers paid directly into the bank accounts of the neediest. Hundreds of millions of the poor must open bank accounts, which is all to the good, because it will bind them into the modern economy. Care must be taken so mothers rather than feckless fathers control funds for their children ... Mr Nilekani harnessed the genius of Indians abroad, including a man who helped the New York Stock Exchange crunch its numbers and one of the brains behind WebMD, an American health IT firm ... India plainly needs better data-protection laws, but even if the existing rules remained unchanged, the threat to liberty would be dwarfed by the gains to welfare: to people who live ten to a room, concerns about privacy sound outlandish. Some of the resistance is principled, but much comes from the people who do well out of today’s filthy system. Indian politics hinge on patronage—the doling out of opportunities to rob one’s countrymen. [Aadhaar] would make this harder. That is why it faces such fierce opposition, and why it could transform India.

According to The Economist then, Indian fathers are feckless but Indian mothers aren't, the Indians who have left the country are brighter than the ones who have stayed at home, poor people don't need privacy the way western journalists do and UIDAI are clean whereas the other gangs dispensing opportunities to rob their own countrymen are "filthy", a most unEconomist word.

And this, too, is most unEconomist – normally the magazine would instantly spot the problem with the following claims:

The state spends a fortune on subsidised grain for the hungry, but an estimated two-thirds of it is stolen or adulterated by middlemen. The government pays for an $8 billion-a-year make-work scheme for the rural poor, but much of the cash ends up in the capacious pockets of officials who invent imaginary “ghost workers”. Suppose those thieving middlemen were obliged to deliver grain, not to poor people in general but to named individuals who could confirm receipt by scanning their fingerprints? And suppose those ghost workers had to undergo an iris scan before being paid?

UIDAI computerisation may make it harder to steal public money from PDS, the food security programme, and from NREGA, the temporary employment scheme, as The Economist suggest. But equally, it may make it much easier.

Aadhaar could make corruption a much more modern, clean, white collar, highly automated pursuit. It's a lot quicker to use a computer to claim wages for thousands of ghost employees than it is to complete manual requests. If Aadhaar wants biometrics, then a computer will provide them. And if Aadhaar has helped to provide everyone with bank accounts and electronic transfer facilities then, thank you very much UIDAI, the "thieving middlemen" may say, now there's no need to handle any cash and it's easier to launder our ill-gotten gains.

This leader of The Economist's barely rises above the level of sales literature. It is obvious why UIDAI would want it published. But why did The Economist allow it? That is a question for Adam Roberts, the South Asia bureau chief based in Delhi, and for Dominic Ziegler, the London-based Asia editor, and for Patrick Foulis, the India business and finance editor in Mumbai, and maybe for Alpesh Kandoi, to whom all media enquiries should be addressed.

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(See also)

The Economist magazine sticks its nose into Indian politics, comes away with egg on its face

After 30 years of reading The Economist, you know what to expect.

The correct answers to most questions are found by letting markets operate freely, as far as The Economist is concerned and politically, that rules out any system that pretends to be able to manage control the economy. The magazine is socially liberal. There's not a hint of racism in it, or sexism – "meritocracy" is the name of the game. Arguments are conducted logically, preferably they're quantitative, the emphasis is on rational management techniques and evidence-based public administration. The magazine is the opposite of insular, open to new ideas wherever they come from, and always up to speed with new technology.

Given which, what on earth happened in the 14 January 2012 edition? It was out of character. Its Scottish Enlightenment body was snatched by aliens. Did The Economist suffer some sort of editorial stroke?