Page 21 - SDR_V15_No1 2022_V5

South African-European Union Dialogue Facility Series

Digital skills and capabilities cation in the Gazette of India in July and September
A mix of people from the public and private sectors 2016. Several regulations have been issued by the
were brought on board to implement the project, en- UIDAI related to regulating different aspects of the
suring a balance of people with knowledge of the gov- programme since the passing of the Aadhaar Act af-
ernment ecosystem and technical expertise related to fecting the following areas:
technological innovation. In addition to the founder, § the process of enrolment;
Nandan Nilekani, who started the technology com-
pany Infosys, others from India’s technology sector § the generation of Aadhaar numbers and
included Pramod Varma as chief architect from Info- their delivery to residents;
sys; Viral Shah, co-inventor of the Julia programming § the updating of information;
language; Shankar Maruwada, CEO of Marketics;
and Sanjay Swamy, CEO of mCheck. The negotiated § the appointment of registrars and enrolling
status of Nilekani as that of a cabinet minister provid- agencies;
ed the impetus for him to drive an expedited agenda
and hire private sector staff. The Aadhaar team was § the omission and deactivation of Aadhaar
kept between 200 and 300, with much of the work numbers;
outsourced and § grievance redressal;
support obtained
from other govern- § the different modes of authentication; and
ment departments.
The UIDAI entered § the specification of an information securi-
into Memorandums ty policy that emphasises confidentiality,
of Understanding which prescribes the security obligations
(MoUs) with regis- of service providers and personnel, and
trars, government provides for audit and inspection; and
departments and § how identity information associated with
private organisa- the Aadhaar number holder can be shared
tions to establish with third parties.
the implementation
infrastructure that In a critical assessment of the legislative framework,
made such a large- Bhandari and Sane identified several weaknesses, in-
scale process pos- cluding the delegation of policy matters and essential
sible. legislative functions to the UIDAI with broad discre-
tion, the potential conflicts of interest arising from the
Policy and regula- UIDAI’s dual role as administrator and regulator, the
tory issues failure to provide specifics for grievance redress, and
India’s approach the uncertainty related to remedial measures.
to implementing
Aadhaar has been Practical ideas for South Africa
described as “build first and legislate later”, with South Africa needs to re-examine the idea of identity,
proponents arguing that it was the only way to move and express more clearly, in policy terms and in prac-
forward in the country. The UIDAI was established tice, how it understands identity. This is a conceptual
through executive order rather than enabling legisla- issue where digital identity is quite different from an-
tion. Aadhaar was implemented without a framework alogue identity; it has little to do with a digitised card,
for data protection and privacy regulation. A consul- and more to do with how a person establishes their
tation paper on a Legal Framework for Data Protec- identity for the purposes of living, acting and trans-
tion and Security and Privacy Norms was issued in acting in the world.
July 2010 and argued for a law that goes beyond the *** This case study is an extract from the Report on
mandate of Aadhaar, covering e-governance issues the International Experience in Open Digital Gover-
and data sharing and privacy from third parties. The nance (April 2022) that was prepared as one of sev-
project continued without legislative foundations until eral inputs for the South Africa-Denmark Dialogue
the adoption of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Fi- initiative. Slightly edited for publication in a magazine
nancial and Other Subsidies, Benefits, and Services) format, source references in the original text have
Act, 2016 (Aadhaar Act) in March 2016 and its publi- been omitted in this version.

SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 15 • No. 1 of 2022 21