印度身份证号码的推广正在继续和深入

What’s in a unique number?
Linking of Aadhaar to a growing number of government entitlements is misguided
WRITTEN BY SWATI NARAYAN |
Updated: February 14, 2017 1:43 Pm
LAST week the Union food ministry issued an unprecedented diktat. It has insisted that each family member must possess an Aadhaar number within four months, to be eligible for subsidised foodgrains under the National Food Security Act.
上周，印度联邦粮食部发布了一个命令，命令要求每个申请家庭成员必须在四个月內，拥有一个身份证号码。凭身份证号码才能有资格根据粮食安全保障法得到补贴谷物的供应 。

This ties in with the larger plan for all ration shops by 2019 to verify Aadhaar biometrics at every transaction. So, not only must 210 million families possess unique numbers for each member, they must also queue up every month to prove their thumbprints. But does this make any logical sense?
这个命令是和一个旨在2019年，实现在所有配给供应商店实现每笔交易都要进行生物信息验证的大计划的要求是一致的。所以全国两亿一千万家庭的每个成员都要求拥有身份证号码，而且每个月他们还必须排队验证指纹.但是这样做合情合理吗？

First, the ration dealer can still give less grain than the printed receipt. Only in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are electronic weighing scales connected to stem “quantity deception”. But they too work only when there is electricity. Besides, the greatest pilferage occurs from godowns, not ration shops.
首先，配给供应商仍然可以克扣供应卡上的定量，只是在安德拉邦和泰米尔纳德邦使用防止数量欺诈的电子秤。但是这些电子秤也只能在有电的时候才有用。而最大的盗窃不在供应店而在粮库。
Second, to weed out ghost cards and “identity fraud,” a one-time exercise to match ration cards with the population
census would have been more than sufficient.
其次，为了消除鬼卡和身份造假，把配给供应卡和人口统计结果进行一次性的匹配原本就是必须的。

Already, every single card nationwide has been digitised and two-thirds Aadhaar-seeded to purge 20 million fake cards.
目前，全国范围内，每张配给供应卡均已实现数字化。其中三分之二由身份证号码生成。这样就清除掉了二千万的伪卡。
Finally, if the aim was to ensure that unsold foodgrains are not siphoned off with “accounting dodges”, there are far simpler alternatives.
最后，如果目标是确保未售出的谷粮不会因为做假帐被吸走，还有更简单的方法。

Bihar’s barcoded coupons have reduced leakages from 91 to 24 per cent within six short years. Previously, Tamil Nadu had relied on offline handheld billing devices (similar to those with bus conductors). Andhra’s ration shops now use iris scanners, with a lower error rate than biometrics.
比哈儿邦采用条码优惠券，结果在六个月內，漏损从91%下降到24%。而更早时候，泰米尔纳德邦使用手持式打票机（类似公交车售票员用的）。安德拉邦的配给供应商店使用虹膜扫描仪，它的差错率远远低于指纹识别。
Instead, the insistence on Aadhaar biometrics has already wreaked havoc. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan estimates that in the last few months, 38 per cent of households in Rajasthan have not been able to match fingerprints. In Madhya Pradesh, 20 per cent of devices have malfunctioned and have been returned to vendors. Similarly, in Jharkhand’s capital, at the outset almost half the cardholders were not able to prove their identity. Five hundred leprosy survivors without fingers in Ranchi were insensitively denied foodgrains for three months — for want of fingerprints.
相反，坚持身份证号码生物信息验证，已经造成极大的混乱。据印度

据印度著名的民权组织工农权利联盟的估摸，在过去的几个月里，拉贾斯坦邦有38%的家庭指纹对不上。而在中央邦百分之二十的指纹识别器故障不能用，退回厂家。同样，在贾坎徳邦首府，从一开始起，就有近一半的持卡人无法验证自己的身份。而在 Ranchi有五百名没有指纹的麻风病人被无情地断供救济粮三个月，因为规定要求购买者必须提交指纹。
The ouster of these eligible, impoverished families is often then heroically projected as savings. But even the best of technologies are often no match for large-scale insider fraud.
对这些原本够格的贫困家庭权利的剥夺，往往随后又会被高调宣传成节约。然而即使是最先进的技术也斗不过内部人员的作假行为。

Recently, across Karnataka, 45,000 bogus
ration cards linked to fictitious 12-digit Aadhaar numbers were discovered.
最近在卡纳塔克邦，发现了四万五千份假冒配给供应卡，这些卡关联的是虚构的12位身份证号码。
Biometrics are not foolproof — the calloused fingers of labourers and the elderly frequently throw up errors. Aadhaar also requires continuous access to mobile signals or the internet, which is a tall order in rural areas that barely have electricity.
生物信息验证不是那么简单的，工人和老人手指上的老茧经常引起验证失败。而验证身份证号码需要在有手机信号或者能上网的地方。这在那些没电的农村简直就是天方夜谭。

A decade ago, the British Parliament passed the Identity Cards Act. The intent was to create a National Identity Register database of all citizens with biometrics, iris, face scans and longitudinal records of residence. But after public outcry and escalating costs, in 2010, a new coalition government repealed the law and the nascent database was permanently destroyed.
十年前，英国议会通过了身份证法。其目的是要建立一个全民身份登记数据库，收集公民的指纹，虹膜，相貌和居所的地理信息。但是由于公众强烈反对和不断上升的费用，2010年，新成立的联合政府撤销了这个法，同时新建立的数据库也被永久撤销摧毁。
Australia and New Zealand too have abandoned the idea of national biometric archives.
而澳大利亚和新西兰也放弃了建立全国生物信息档案库的想法。

India’s Aadhaar project, however, has ballooned since its birth.
而在印度，身份证号码工程自从诞生就一直在不断膨胀扩大。
From April, Aadhaar will also be a must to demand work under the MGNREGA. The Karnataka government plans to track the progress of every school child with fingerprints.
在从四月起，身份证号码就要成为申请全国农村权利保障计划工作（即每个农村家庭至少有个家庭成员每年至少一百天工作保证）的必要条件。卡纳塔克邦政府计划使用指纹追踪每个学生的成长。

Soon newborns in Maharashtra will also be enrolled for the magic numbers in hospitals. Never mind that their fingerprints and irises are yet to be fully formed.
用不了多久，马哈拉斯特拉邦的新生儿将在医院注册身份证号码。不消说，新生儿的指纹和虹膜信息都会被采集走。
In this “Big Brother” Aadhaar mania, the HRD ministry has finally sounded the alarm bell. It has questioned the Centre’s push to link these unique numbers to student scholarships, which is in clear violation of earlier Supreme Court orders.
在这股身份证号码热中，印度人力资源部终于响起了警报声。它对中央推动把身份证号码与学生学籍关联的做法，提出质疑，说这明显违反了最高法院的裁定。

Despite the furtive enactment of the Aadhaar Act through the backdoor as a money bill, the apex court has repeatedly pronounced that the unique number must be “purely voluntary” and cannot be made mandatory for any government entitlement, till the matter is sub judice.
尽管政府经过后门以财政法案（该法只有下院批准而非两院通过）的形式偷偷摸摸地进行身份证号码立法，这个事情还在法院审理，最高法院已经反复重申，身份证号码应用必须“纯属志愿”，任何政府授权资格都不能强制关联身份证号码。

India ranks 97 of 118 countries on the Global Hunger Index. Two of every three Indians are guaranteed foodgrains under the National Food Security Act. One of every five rural households depends on MGNREGA work. Let an increasingly Orwellian “Digital India,” in the guise of Aadhaar, not eat into these lifelines.
印度全球饥饿指数排列97名总共117名。每三个印度人中有两个根据国民粮食保障法吃救济粮。每五个印度农村家庭中至少一个是享受全国农村权利保障计划工作福利计划的工作保障（其实就是以工作的名义给穷人发钱）。但愿以身份证号码为幌子，引进英国作家乔治•奥威尔描写过的因为严格统治而失去人性的社会式的所谓“数字印度”，不会对于这些印度人的生命线有不良影响。

The writer is a visiting research scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences
First Published on: February 13, 2017 12:00 am