Till the last weeks of 2025, resistance to forced digitisation and coercion continued – in the form of litigation by anganwadi workers in the Bombay High Court, by government teachers in Maharashtra and a powerful strike by over 2 lakh gig workers. More strength and solidarity to them!

As we enter the new year, and look back on the old, we gather our strength to continue resistance, spread awareness and create and collect resources. 

The UK government advertised its own digital ID card with claims that the switch to Aadhar saved India’s government over $10bn each year, a dubious claim that has never been proven,  in the backdrop of Mankadia’s death is the fact that the Odisha government and the Union government are denying 15.66 lakh families their right to food

In light of numerous instances of APAAR ID exclusion and fresh coercion being reported, we are re-posting our update from January 2025 on the subject.

(Cover image: roadscholarz.net)

As Indian government tries to promote its model of biometric ID model to other regions, a growing list of articles and reports documenting the risks of Aadhaar:

• A detailed investigation into the working of an Aadhaar Seva Kendra in Ranchi illustrates the bureaucratic ordeals imposed on people trying to update or enrol in Aadhaar. 

• Assam’s government announced it will stop issuing Aadhaar numbers to adults to prevent non-Indian citizens from obtaining them, despite the fact that Aadhaar can be legally provided to non-citizens, and this move will likely disenfranchise people seeking access to benefits. 

• The endless cycle of KYC continues as DBT beneficiaries are set to be audited again. 

• Aadhaar is the new “weak link” in insurance processes

Despite being the most widely held identity document in the country, Aadhaar has been excluded from the list of 11 documents officially prescribed by the ECI in Bihar for residence or identity verification. This surfaces a tension.
What are the implications of treating Aadhaar as a primary gateway to the franchise, especially when it has been linked to exclusions in welfare, banking, and healthcare? What are the risks of embedding biometric identity into the architecture of electoral participation when the Aadhaar-voter ID linkage remains under a pending constitutional challenge?  Can an instrument used across virtually every domain of public life serve as meaningful proof of residence or citizenship when it was never designed to establish either?

The SC suggested the government may consider Aadhaar as one of valid documents in Bihar voter roll exercise. Aadhaar is not a citizen ID, it continues to cause mass exclusions, privacy harms. There must be a clear separation between Aadhaar as a voluntary ID and it being a prerequisite to access any rights

In spite of all the reports of hardship and exclusion as well as continuing fraud from the use of Aadhaar, the government keeps expanding its scope and making it mandatory for legal entitlements as well. We are sharing a round-up of recent developments. We urge you to share these updates with your networks as well.

पांच साल पहले उच्चतम न्यायालय ने आधार परियोजना पर सीमाएं लगा दी थीं, आज यह बढ़ती जा रही है। आज मूडीज आधार को लेकर चिंतित है और सबसे भरोसेमंद आईडी के जरिए धोखाधड़ी जारी है।आधार के लिए डेटा संरक्षण अधिनियम का क्या मतलब है? पुलिस व्यक्तियों पर नज़र रखने के लिए आधार का उपयोग कैसे करती है? इस महीने हम नरेगा और आधार पर एक अवश्य पढ़ी जाने वाली रिपोर्ट और इंडिया स्टैक पर एक अवश्य पढ़ी जाने वाली रिपोर्ट साझा कर रहे हैं। फैसले के पांच साल बाद, हम विचार करते हैं।

[इस्तेमाल की गई तस्वीर हरक्यूलिस क्लस्टर के एस्ट्रो-फोटोग्राफर रजत कुमार द्वारा ली गई है]

Where are we now? The Supreme Court had placed limitations on the UID project, today it proliferates. Moody’s is concerned about Aadhaar, and frauds continue to be committed through the most trusted ID. What does the Data Protection Act mean for the UID? How does the police use Aadhaar to track individuals? This month we share a must read report on NREGA and Aadhaar, and a must read report on India Stack. Five years after the judgment, we reflect.

[Image used is a photograph of the Hercules cluster taken by astrophotographer Rajat Kumar]

फैक्ट फाइंडिंग टीम ने यह भी पाया कि बच्चे के परिवार को 21 महीने से पीडीएस के माध्यम से राशन नहीं मिला था. अर्जुन की मां तुलसी यह नहीं समझ पा रही थीं कि उनका राशन कार्ड क्यों रद्द कर दिया गया था, टीम ने पाया कि उनके नाम की वर्तनी आधार कार्ड और उनके राशन कार्ड पर अलग-अलग लिखी गई थी, जिससे संभवतः राशन कार्ड और आधार को लिंक करने के की कोशिश में रद्द किया गया था।

Following news reports that a child had died in March of this year due to malnutrition, a fact-finding team of local activists, social scientists and journalists visited Ghatisahi village and found that the child’s family had not received rations through the PDS for 21 months. While Arjun’s mother Tulasi was not able to understand why her ration card had been cancelled, the team found that her name was spelt differently on her Aadhaar card and on her ration card, likely leading to the cancellation of the ration card in the process of attempting to link both.

Issues within the Aadhaar programme are given terms familiar to technological innovation that lighten and obscure the cost of the programme. When people are unable to link Aadhaar with ration cards due to a mismatch in their names on both, or when the internet fails, or when fingerprints don’t work, we are told to call these “teething problems” bringing to mind a small toddler who is just learning to eat solid food, rather than a state-owned programme mandatorily imposed on population which excludes many from their fundamental rights and entitlements. Exclusion is measured in the percentage of the total population, which is downplayed as being insignificant or not significant enough for action, and issues central to the functioning of the programme are seen as implementation issues rather than intrinsic failures of the programme leading to situations of crises, starvation, death and the destruction of welfare. Every instance of exclusion comes at a grave human cost.