The Magic Number; India's Identity Scheme  

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Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine
Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 402 no. 8767 (Jan. 2012), page 10.
Topik: Social Services; Low Income Groups; Biometric Identification; Identification Systems; Government

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Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.69 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada

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India's economy might be thriving, but many of its people are not. Poverty has many causes, and no simple cure. But one massive problem in India is that few poor people can prove who they are. They have no passport, no driving licence, no proof of address. The government offers them all kinds of welfare, but because they lack an identity, they struggle to lay hands on what they have been promised. If poor Indians each had an identity number tied to unique biometric markers, it would be much harder for the powerful to rob them. Sceptics will scoff that the Indian government is far too incompetent to implement such a scheme. But the sceptics are wrong. This month India's unique identity (UID) scheme will enroll its 200 millionth member, having had almost none only a year ago. By the end of this year, says Nandan Nilekani, a former software mogul who runs the project, the tally could stand at 400m, a third of all Indians. The scheme is voluntary, but the poor are visibly enthusiastic about it. Long lines wait patiently in the heat to have their fingerprints and irises scanned and entered into what has swiftly become the world's largest biometric database. For the poor, having a secure online identity alters their relationship with the modern world.

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