Much has been made about the impact of Aadhaar on privacy by comparing it to a “panopticon”.
However, the government has real-time data on citizens from centralised monitoring services, direct tapping into internet service providers, telecom service providers, disclosures made by social media companies and various other means. Aadhaar is simply unifying them into a central database.
We never had privacy really. Google, Facebook, WhatsApp know a lot about us. Indeed, WhatsApp encryption is a charade because it is only interested in “metadata” or “data about data” instead of message content. With WhatsApp entering the payments space, it will have more fine-grained financial data about citizens’ habits.
Privacy is a misnomer. What’s needed is a shift from social media accounts, using decentralised services and secure communication channels such as Threema and BBM Enterprise.
We are living in the Orwellian shadow. It’s time to reassert our privacy choices.
Abhishek Puri via email
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