Subverting ID from above and below: The uncertain shaping of India’s new instrument of e-governance

Rao, Ursula; Greenleaf, Graham

doi:10.24908/ss.v11i3.4496

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…India's Aadhaar/UIDAI is expected to assist with many aspects of state security and to prevent fraud and identity inaccuracies within India's existing government bureaucracy. As Rao and Greenleaf () show this program is not singular, but multiple. The Aadhaar/UIDAI program is expected to help with public distribution systems by routing out duplicate or fake beneficiaries because the provisions will be directly linked to individual biometrics (Saxena, ).…”

Section: Biometric Usage In South Asiamentioning

confidence: 95%

A New Development Technology? South Asian Biometrics and the Promise of State Security and Economic Opportunity

2015

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This paper examines the intra-and inter-state usage of biometrics as a "new" technology of development and neoliberal security in South Asia. We view developmental use of biometrics as a tool for integrating the vast majority of poor and marginalized people as visible and calculable economic subjects. We examine the ways in which biometrics translates people into data for the purposes of state, security, and economic legibility. In this paper, we explore biometrics at the intersection of geopolitics, biopolitics, and development to highlight the promise and pitfalls of "technological progress" as a new development strategy."Authorities in India are investigating how Hanuman, the monkey god, has been issued a biometric identity card. The card photo features the character from the Hindu epic Ramayana wearing gold and pearl jewellery and a crown. It emerged when a postman attempted to deliver the card, but could not find a Hanuman at the address." -BBC 1 Whether this "ID of the Gods" was a prank or a form of sabotage is perhaps inconsequential, rather we take note that the problem in the system was only realized when the card failed to be delivered. Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) also known as Aadhaar was launched in 2009 and aims to issue an ID card with a 12-digit unique number to all of India's 1.2 billion citizens with biometric details-iris scan, fingerprints and photographs. The Aadhaar/UIDAI program offers an individualized system of existing state welfare and development programs. Proponents of biometrics promise a future that is secure and profitable, enabling the free movement of goods and people, while curtailing corruption and terrorism. The dreams of massive state development projects, the national ID program being merely the latest iteration, are rarely shaken from their slumber in the plans and speculations of their proponents, while the practice and everyday lives of those people who interact with these systems require further attention by geographers. Hanuman's ID reminds us, according to Gupta (2012, 9), of "the sheer contingency underlying the workings of a supposedly highly rationalized, bureaucratic state." Gupta questions how state bureaucracies produce arbitrary outcomes under the guise of provisioning care, development and security.This paper provides an overview of biometrics research in Human and Development Geography, and related social sciences. The increase in intra-and inter-state usage of biometrics data as an emerging development technology requires further inquiry, and this paper outlines the extant literature and calls for more research on biometrics in the global south. By focusing on South Asia, we provide differentiated examples of biometrics usage in order to examine the

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Section: Biometric Usage In South Asiamentioning

confidence: 95%

A New Development Technology? South Asian Biometrics and the Promise of State Security and Economic Opportunity

2015

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“…The relevance of the body, as well as marks on the body, in terms of rights and belonging have been analysed particularly in relation to immigrants (Fassin and d'Halluin. 2005;Heinemann and Lemke 2014;Malkki 1996;Ticktin 2011aTicktin , 2011b and in the study of biometrics (Aas 2006;Breckenridge 2014;Dijstelbloem and Meijer 2011;Rao and Greenleaf 2013;van der Ploeg 1999). Writings on therapeutic or genetic citizenship are concerned with claims that can be made on a global order beyond nation states, as in the case of HIV treatment (Nguyen 2005), or within transnational networks, as in the case of people suffering from rare genetic diseases (Rose and Novas 2005).…”

Section: Bringing Together Citizenship and The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Claiming citizenship rights through the body multiple

Netz

Lempp

Krause

et al. 2019

Citizenship Studies

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What have affirmative action policies, categorization of care needs, plastic surgery, forensic identification of dead bodies and age assessments of refugees in common? They all determine recognition and access to resources and rights via the body. In the introduction to this special issue, the editors emphasize that the body only becomes distinct and significant when it is put in relation to historically and geographically differing norms and standards. This relational approach opens up the 'black boxes' of science, medicine, bureaucracy and eventually the body. Drawing on practice theory, critical citizenship studies and Science and Technology Studies, the authors discuss notions of social citizenship and the conceptualization of biological citizenship in medical anthropology. They think with the contributions of the special issue that analyse how medical practitioners, state and private institutions, as well as individuals enact certain bodies in specific material and discursive constellations. By taking neither citizenship nor the body for granted, the special issue shows how situationally-bound elements in relations, space and time, matter for a person's access to rights and resourcesand hence can draw attention to blind spots in particular categorization practices. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…The lack of such empirical studies may be explained by difficulties of access, as these systems are often used in sensitive contexts such as security, border control, or asylum management. A few recent (ethnographically inspired) studies on the roll-out of India's national biometrics-based ID programme (see Rao & Greenleaf 2013;Jacobsen 2012) discuss problems to enrol women and manual labourers, thereby highlighting the potential exclusionary effects of specific biometric technologies.…”

Section: Selective Failures and Their Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of the largest of these, such as the Indian Unique Identification Project (see e.g. Rao and Greenleaf 2013) include hundreds of millions of people. In Europe, the largest biometric systems are deployed in the areas of migration and border management, and include the Schengen Information System (SIS), the Visa Information System (VIS), and Eurodac.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Securing Identities: Biometric Technologies and the Enactment of Human Bodily Differences

Kloppenburg

Ploeg

2018

Science as Culture

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Worldwide, biometrics are quickly becoming the preferred solution to a wide range of problems involving identity checking. Biometrics are claimed to provide more secure identification and verification, because 'the body does not lie.' Yet, every biometric check consists of a process with many intermediate steps, introducing contingency and choice on many levels. In addition, there are underlying normative assumptions regarding human bodies that affect the functioning of biometric systems in highly problematic ways. In recent social science studies, the failures of biometric systems have been interpreted as gendered and racialized biases. A more nuanced understanding of how biometrics and bodily differences intersect draws attention to how bodily differences are produced, used, and problematized during the research and design phases of biometric systems, as well as in their use. In technical engineering research, issues of biometrics' performance and human differences are already transformed into R&D challenges in variously more and less problematic ways. In daily practices of border control, system operators engage in workarounds to make the technology work well with a wide range of users. This shows that claims about 'inherent whiteness' of biometrics should be adjusted: relationships between biometric technologies, gender and ethnicity are emergent, multiple and complex. Moreover, from the viewpoint of theorizing gender and ethnicity, biometrics' difficulties in correctly recognising pre-defined categories of gender or ethnicity may be less significant than its involvement in producing and enacting (new) gender and ethnic classifications and identities.

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Subverting ID from above and below: The uncertain shaping of India’s new instrument of e-governance

Cited by 23 publications

References 15 publications

A New Development Technology? South Asian Biometrics and the Promise of State Security and Economic Opportunity

A New Development Technology? South Asian Biometrics and the Promise of State Security and Economic Opportunity

Claiming citizenship rights through the body multiple

Securing Identities: Biometric Technologies and the Enactment of Human Bodily Differences

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