Oracle and National ID cards
A report in Business World on Sep 26, 2005 claims "Oracle India to issue national identity cards" as part of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). It was also reported in a popular mailing list dedicated for e-Governance in India - India-eGov. The report further states that Oracle India will be assisted by Home ministry in this under the Multipurpose National Identity Cards (MNIC) project. Nothing could sound more ridiculous than this, if this report is indeed true.
We should clearly demarcate the boundary between the roles of government departments and private companies so that each party operates within their area. I would understand, if Oracle assists the Union Home ministry in the project by providing the database to store the details of the citizens. But, here the report swaps the roles of the home ministry and Oracle. If a private MNC is to issue national id cards, then I fail to see the reason, why we should have the home ministry. The consequences of a MNC having access to the complete (or even part of) national database containing the vital details of citizens are serious and unforeseeable.
This author tried to gather more information on this and browsed thro' Oracle India site, e-Gov Centre of Excellence jointly initiated by Oracle & HP and Google news, but without any success.
Curiously enough a simple Google search on "Oracle national ID cards" threw hundreds of thousands of results. Almost all the results show that Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison has been advocating for national id cards based on digital technology and fingerprints, in US and UK at least since 2001 and even offered the software to make it possible - free of charge. This offer was rejected even by the greatest anti-terror campaigners in the world - George Bush and Tony Blair - on concerns of privacy and citizens' freedom. Writing in The Register Andrew Orlowski points out that, attempts by Oracle chief is to "create new demand and new markets for his wares." He further says explains, "...there would be downstream benefits for Oracle of course, in the form of consulting and future applications."
So, does it mean that Oracle - after having failed in US and UK - is now trying to push the idea of national ID cards in India, in an effort to sustain its market share? Will this not make the Indian govt. to be in the mercy of Oracle forever?
It should however be noted that the present proposal is silent on the use of biometrics in the national id cards. But, given the track record of projects being executed in India, this could well be a closely guarded secret, since the citizens right-to-information is still in the paper, despite the law being passed recently. The Indian public has every right to know the necessity of the present project and the need to award the project Oracle, if it has been do so already. We can not just do anything and everything for the sake of buzz words like e-governance, enabling citizens etc. and we need to be extremely cautious in deciding e-governance projects.
Tailpiece: I only hope that, the reporter misreported the news, which originally could be something like "Oracle to help government in issuing national id cards".
We should clearly demarcate the boundary between the roles of government departments and private companies so that each party operates within their area. I would understand, if Oracle assists the Union Home ministry in the project by providing the database to store the details of the citizens. But, here the report swaps the roles of the home ministry and Oracle. If a private MNC is to issue national id cards, then I fail to see the reason, why we should have the home ministry. The consequences of a MNC having access to the complete (or even part of) national database containing the vital details of citizens are serious and unforeseeable.
This author tried to gather more information on this and browsed thro' Oracle India site, e-Gov Centre of Excellence jointly initiated by Oracle & HP and Google news, but without any success.
Curiously enough a simple Google search on "Oracle national ID cards" threw hundreds of thousands of results. Almost all the results show that Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison has been advocating for national id cards based on digital technology and fingerprints, in US and UK at least since 2001 and even offered the software to make it possible - free of charge. This offer was rejected even by the greatest anti-terror campaigners in the world - George Bush and Tony Blair - on concerns of privacy and citizens' freedom. Writing in The Register Andrew Orlowski points out that, attempts by Oracle chief is to "create new demand and new markets for his wares." He further says explains, "...there would be downstream benefits for Oracle of course, in the form of consulting and future applications."
So, does it mean that Oracle - after having failed in US and UK - is now trying to push the idea of national ID cards in India, in an effort to sustain its market share? Will this not make the Indian govt. to be in the mercy of Oracle forever?
It should however be noted that the present proposal is silent on the use of biometrics in the national id cards. But, given the track record of projects being executed in India, this could well be a closely guarded secret, since the citizens right-to-information is still in the paper, despite the law being passed recently. The Indian public has every right to know the necessity of the present project and the need to award the project Oracle, if it has been do so already. We can not just do anything and everything for the sake of buzz words like e-governance, enabling citizens etc. and we need to be extremely cautious in deciding e-governance projects.
Tailpiece: I only hope that, the reporter misreported the news, which originally could be something like "Oracle to help government in issuing national id cards".
posted by Baskaran Sankaran @ 07:55
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