Hello,
The purpose of this thread is to move further from where we had left it in the earlier one and as suggested by Dinesh Shah, discuss how we as FOSS people can provide alternate solutions to the shortcomings of the current system. Lets keep this purely technical and not pro or anti Aadhar.
I have been looking up official as well as technology information about the Aadhar UID system and some important links are posted below. My observations are as follows.
1) The Aadhar project uses 2 forms of biometric identities, the fingerprints and the iris. 2) The fingerprint system used is the standard 2D system which is prone to errors due to various factors as explained in the links. There is a new system which is the 3D fingerprint scan that is yet to be available commercially (IMHO). It has better accuracy with good image quality as it is contact-less. The pdf link to the same is here....
Quality and Matching Performance Analysis of 3D Unraveled Fingerprints http://vis.uky.edu/~realtime3d/Doc/Manuscripts/Quality%20and%20matching%20pe...
Fingerprint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint
3) In iris scanning, there are chances of cheating by using fake iris contact lenses. To eliminate this problem, iris scanners use 'live-tissue verification' techniques to detect natural tissue.
Iris recognition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_recognition
4) The Aadhar PoC ducument does not mention whether the live-tissue verification system is in place for iris scanners.
proof of concept trial http://uidai.gov.in/images/FrontPageUpdates/uid_enrolment_poc_report.pdf
5) It is surprising that though they take multiple photos of the subject during the enrolment process, there is no face recognition software to take advantage of this bio-identity for more accurate results. Although this should be a fringe benefit and not the main basis of checking id.
6) Blood group which is an important and constant bio-identity for life is not included in this project. If implemented, proper sterile needles should be used for every sample collected. This information may not be necessary for regular business but useful for security agencies for id lookup of suspicious persons.
7) The software used for the devices is a custom software
"A reference implementation of the enrolment software was created to standardize the process and have a uniform look-and-feel of the application across all three states. However, since the devices used were different in each state, the enrolment software used in each state was a custom version which followed the reference design. The UID technology team worked with each of the three agencies to create the customized software to be used in the corresponding state. There were also variations in the capture process followed, particularly in iris capture, because of the variations in capture devices."
As devices vary in hardware, their accuracy will vary too. Since the software is the custom type, there will be total dependency on the hardware suppliers for software. In addition to this cost, for every computer that they use across the country, a license fee will have to be paid for every operating system that is the commercial proprietary type.
Conclusion:
1) Instead of leaving this project in the hands of private hardware and software suppliers, the entire project should be centrally controlled by a Govt. institution that is actively involved into computing and software development like CDAC etc.
2) They should test devices from various vendors across the country and list them according to their accuracy. Only those devices that conform to FOSS software support should be included in the list. The entire report of this testing should be posted openly on the internet.
3) Software for this entire project including the server side too should be developed in-house by that Govt. institution and made the standard to all computers involded in the Aadhar project across the country.
4) Use only free as in freedom and free as in cost and open source software for the Aadhar system. This will eliminate the per computer license fees for operating systems in every Aadhar computer across the country. Given the total number of Aadhar computers in tens of thousands, this will be a significant amount. The added advantage of POSIX confirming systems will be immunity against common computer viruses as the systems will be on-line all the time for faster transactions.
Some more lniks....
Unique Identification Authority of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Identification_Authority_of_India
De-duplication – The Complexity in the Unique ID context http://www.4gid.com/De-dup-complexity%20unique%20ID%20context.pdf