- Aadhar is not mandatory. The Supreme Court of india ruled on it and made it non-mandatory. Despite it being optional about 83% of the people are already registered for Aadhar and the rest are just being lazy or ignorant. So, nobody has forced anything.
- There are strict guidelines on what the biometric information can be used for (again the supreme court ensured that). So, for ex. the biometric information can't be used by the Police etc. etc. It is purely for the welfare and social security system and general identification/authentication. There are a myriad cards or ids currently (like driving licence, PAN cards etc.), and Aadhar unifies various existing systems and eliminates wastage and crime. Unlike in developed countries, welfare crime in india is very high.
- The article doesn't give enough information on what the government wants, but not attending a meeting where their requirements/justifications are presented is just stupid.
Regarding Apple Pay, NFC is non-existent in india, don't see it picking up anytime soon. So, I don't think apple should even be bothered about it.
FYI: Welfare fraud is common everywhere, not just in poor countries.
If China asks manufacturers for something similar I bet Apple would bend.
The times where login biometrics are stored in a govt repository are surely coming. Requiring identification techniques like this would help defeat fraud and also help tracking of terrorists (they often hand off phones to one another to deceive govt snoopers tracking them). As Europe descends into a pseudo police state I'm sure they would like to have something like this.
Trolling around again? Please do tell us what Snowden told us about the NSA? Or how people get shot by the police for little to no reasons...
Europe has its problems but we are trying to deal with terrorists while still trying to stay compassionate to refugees. With regards to refugees your policies/interventions in the middle east have been a big part of the reason that there are so many refugees. Maybe we should send them all on to your shores so you can deal with the mess you helped create.
If China asks manufacturers for something similar I bet Apple would bend.
I suppose, you even have an example of that? Would you mind to share it with everybody here, so that we all can see you claims are not completely vacuous?
It doesn't really matter, though. But, this attitude might have to do with why Apple isn't beating expectations of how well they are performing in India
"Go to your headquarters and work this out so that we can have Aadhaar-registered devices," Pandey reportedly said at the meeting.
If I have to choose the organisation that stores and manages my biometric details, I would prefer a democratic elected government much more than any private company. With an elected government , I can at least undo my mistake at the next election. When Tim Cook calls the democratically elected EU institutions crap, this just confirms my point. I don't want to put the control over my biometric details in the hands an arrogant CEO, who thinks he is allowed much more than any other person because his company is so successful.
You do realize the United States is not a democracy right? In fact the word democracy isn't mentioned once in the constitution.
Second, a private company can't force you do do a damn thing while a government can through law and threat of force, so why again do you trust the government? When has Apple ever forced you to buy an iPhone? On the flip side, the government can force you to give up your rights and money. Case in point ObamaCare, either pay for health insurance or pay a tax, either way you're paying or we're sending an IRS agent with a couple of officers with guns to your door. Apple can't do that which is why I trust private companies more.
Of course now we just have collusion between the government and big companies to create monopolies like the FDA and big pharma, but that's a whole different subject and even then a monopoly still can't force you to buy anything or do anything. Only government can.
Apple should let the Indian government maintain a fingerprint or equivalent database for Apple users? Wow brilliant! The average folks can't afford iOS devices and the government is bitching at every turn? I say let them buy exploding Samsung phones and check back in 10 or 20 years. They are not ready for prime time.
- There are strict guidelines on what the biometric information can be used for (again the supreme court ensured that)
Can the Supreme Court guarantee that it'd never fall into the wrong hands?
Apple took great pains in designing the secure enclave on iOS devices to ensure fingerprint data was as secure as possible, and even still people found a way to hack it (not the fingerprint data on the secure enclave, but the authentication system itself). And that's only for a device which you keep with you all the time (so someone would need to steal it), and where the fingerprint data is only accessed by the device itself (so someone would need to somehow get a high-res copy of your fingerprint). I can only imagine how many more hacking opportunities are available for biometric data being stored on servers and accessed for various uses via the Internet. No thanks.
I'm reminded of being fingerprinted for the FBI along with every one of my primary school classmates way back in the day. I assume it was common. This was at a small school in a rural area too, not some big metro. Nobody thought anything of it AFAIK. Then too many employers now require it, and refusal is legal grounds for termination. Those fingerprints get stored, and perhaps in less than secure ways.
IMHO we tend to worry far too much about ultimately trivial matters that are unlikely to ever impact any specific person's quality of life while ignoring big stuff (water and food quality, health care problems, education reforms and children's advocacy). Why? Because it's easy to make believe we're doing making a difference by complaining and pontificating. We get to imagine we did something good when we haven't done a darn thing. It might be hard to actually do something that requires thought, planning, donation of our time, and perhaps physical effort.
The whole "OMG... Privacy!" is an easy distraction that lets us avoid having to acknowledge or do anything about real issues that actually affect hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people everyday. Oh, the woes of the relatively well-to-do. With not enough to worry about we'll make some stuff up and imagine it's REALLY important.
I'm reminded of being fingerprinted for the FBI along with every one of my primary school classmates way back in the day. I assume it was common. This was at a small school in a rural area too, not some big metro. Nobody thought anything of it AFAIK.
Probably easier to get away with in a rural area where there are less people to be critical of it. But yeah, we've come a long way from the days where government organizations like the FBI and CIA had this type of carte blanche without anyone batting an eye.
I see a lot of negative reactions. My own predilections run in the direction of protecting privacy from Big Brother, so I agree with that sentiment.
However, isn't fingerprint tech a form of biometrics? If that can be walled-off, why not, say, an iris scan?
That's an interesting question. Though dated, I have some experience in fingerprint tech. In 1967-68, I worked for IBM on a project for the Clark County, NV (Las Vegas) Sheriff's Department -- where we converted hundreds of thousands of index cards into a digital format for inclusion into a database. The index cards contained typed/handwritten summary information about anyone who came in contact with the Sheriff's Department.
The project lasted over a year, and I spent a lot (a whole lot) of time with Sheriff's department personnel. One of the things I learned was that finger prints weren't an exact form of identification. Rather, they were used as a filter to narrow down the search to individuals whose fingerprints had similar characteristics. At that time, the evaluation of the filtered candidates was done by hand. I suspect that tech has changed that, but I don't think it is, yet, a fully-automated process of identification.
A somewhat surprising finding was that the prevailing attitude within the Sheriff's Department was that people should not be forced/required to register guns that they buy/own. It was explained to me that this would allow the Federal Govt. to confiscate the guns on a whim
IMHO we tend to worry far too much about ultimately trivial matters that are unlikely to ever impact any specific person's quality of life while ignoring big stuff (water and food quality, health care problems, education reforms and children's advocacy).
The whole "OMG... Privacy!" is an easy distraction that lets us avoid having to acknowledge or do anything about real issues that actually affect hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people everyday.
Can you draw me the logical path which lead you to believe that because one cares deeply about privacy matters, they are uninterested in world affairs?
Ya right, Apple going t make a special phone just for India to do this? No! Part of the problem is the U.S. Government trying to get a backdoor into phones. It's making other countries thinking about doing their own dumb things besides expecting the same backdoor access the U.S. Government expects to get.
Why is India going after Apple? Apple is only going to have about 2% smartphone market share in India when Android is going to have around 96% smartphone market share. India should be going after Google and its manufacturing partners. Google has the most to gain. Apple will gain nothing, as usual, because there won't be enough iPhones being used in India to matter.
Comments
It doesn't really matter, though. But, this attitude might have to do with why Apple isn't beating expectations of how well they are performing in India
Second, a private company can't force you do do a damn thing while a government can through law and threat of force, so why again do you trust the government? When has Apple ever forced you to buy an iPhone? On the flip side, the government can force you to give up your rights and money. Case in point ObamaCare, either pay for health insurance or pay a tax, either way you're paying or we're sending an IRS agent with a couple of officers with guns to your door. Apple can't do that which is why I trust private companies more.
Of course now we just have collusion between the government and big companies to create monopolies like the FDA and big pharma, but that's a whole different subject and even then a monopoly still can't force you to buy anything or do anything. Only government can.
However, isn't fingerprint tech a form of biometrics? If that can be walled-off, why not, say, an iris scan?
So the government wants to amass biometric and privacy data on every individual! We, Eloi, don't mind...
YEAH RIGHT.
Apple should let the Indian government maintain a fingerprint or equivalent database for Apple users? Wow brilliant!
The average folks can't afford iOS devices and the government is bitching at every turn?
I say let them buy exploding Samsung phones and check back in 10 or 20 years.
They are not ready for prime time.
Apple took great pains in designing the secure enclave on iOS devices to ensure fingerprint data was as secure as possible, and even still people found a way to hack it (not the fingerprint data on the secure enclave, but the authentication system itself). And that's only for a device which you keep with you all the time (so someone would need to steal it), and where the fingerprint data is only accessed by the device itself (so someone would need to somehow get a high-res copy of your fingerprint). I can only imagine how many more hacking opportunities are available for biometric data being stored on servers and accessed for various uses via the Internet. No thanks.
IMHO we tend to worry far too much about ultimately trivial matters that are unlikely to ever impact any specific person's quality of life while ignoring big stuff (water and food quality, health care problems, education reforms and children's advocacy). Why? Because it's easy to make believe we're doing making a difference by complaining and pontificating. We get to imagine we did something good when we haven't done a darn thing. It might be hard to actually do something that requires thought, planning, donation of our time, and perhaps physical effort.
The whole "OMG... Privacy!" is an easy distraction that lets us avoid having to acknowledge or do anything about real issues that actually affect hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people everyday. Oh, the woes of the relatively well-to-do. With not enough to worry about we'll make some stuff up and imagine it's REALLY important.
Just my .02
The project lasted over a year, and I spent a lot (a whole lot) of time with Sheriff's department personnel. One of the things I learned was that finger prints weren't an exact form of identification. Rather, they were used as a filter to narrow down the search to individuals whose fingerprints had similar characteristics. At that time, the evaluation of the filtered candidates was done by hand. I suspect that tech has changed that, but I don't think it is, yet, a fully-automated process of identification.
A somewhat surprising finding was that the prevailing attitude within the Sheriff's Department was that people should not be forced/required to register guns that they buy/own. It was explained to me that this would allow the Federal Govt. to confiscate the guns on a whim
FWIW, I've never owned or had a gun.