Open Source For You — December 2017

Guest Column Exploring Software

http://www.OpenSourceForU.com | OPEN SOURCE FOR YOU | DECEMBER 2017 | 13

to be online and paperless.

An easy option is to seed the public key with the Aadhaar

database. It does not need to be issued by a certification

authority. Any time a person digitally signs a digital document

with his private key, it can be verified using the public key.

There is no need to worry about securing access to the public

key as, by its very nature, it is public.

This can save on court time as well. In case of any disputes,

no witnesses need be called; and even after many years, there

will be no need to worry about the fallibility of the human mind.

Elimination of life certificates

Even after linking the Aadhaar number to the pension account,

one still needs to go through the annual ritual of physically

proving that one is alive!

I am reminded of an ERP installation where the plant manager

insisted on keeping track of the production status at various stages,

against our advice. It took a mere week for him to realise his

error. While his group was spending more time creating data, he

himself was drowning in it. He had less control over production

than he had before the ERP system was installed. Since we had

anticipated this issue, it did not take us long to change the process

to capture the minimum data, as we had recommended.

Pension-issuing authorities should assume that the

pensioner is alive till a death certificate is issued. The amount

of data needed in the latter case is considerably less!

Lessons from programming

Most programmers learn from experience that exception handling

is the crucial part of a well written program. More often than not,

greater effort is required to design and handle the exceptions.

Efficient programming requires that the common

transactions take the minimal resources. The design and

implementation must minimise the interactions needed with a

user and not burden the user by providing unnecessary data.

One hopes that any new usage of UID will keep these

lessons in mind.

All of you have perhaps been busy fulfilling the requirements

of linking your Aadhaar numbers with various organisations like

banks, mobile phone service providers, etc, just as I have been. I

am reminded of the time when relational databases were becoming

popular. Back then, the IT departments had to worry about

consistency of data when normalising it and removing duplication.

M

y name seems simple enough but it gets routinely

misspelled. All too often it does not matter and you,

like me, may choose to ignore the incorrect spelling.

We tend to be more particular that the address is correct with

an online shopping store, even if the name is misspelled. On the

other hand, you will want to make sure that the name is correct on

a travel document, even if there is a discrepancy in the address.

Reconciling data can be a very difficult process. Hence,

it comes as a surprise that once PAN is linked to the bank

accounts and Aadhaar is linked to the PAN, why create

the potential for discrepancies by forcing banks to link the

accounts with Aadhaar, especially as companies do not have

Aadhaar and one person can create many companies?

This set me thinking about some areas where the UID would

have saved me a lot of effort and possibly, at no risk to my identity

in the virtual world. Obviously, the use cases are for digitally

comfortable citizens and should never be mandatory.

When registering a will

While an unregistered will may be valid, the formalities

become much simpler if the will is registered. A local

government office told me that registering a will is simple —

just bring two witnesses, one of whom should be a gazetted

officer (I wonder if there is an app to find one).

It would be much simpler if I register the will using an

Aadhaar verification, using biometrics. No witnesses needed.

Now, no one needs to know what I would like to happen after I

am no longer around.

When registering a nominee

If the Aadhaar ID of a nominee is mentioned, the nominee

does not need to provide any documentation or witnesses other

than the death certificate, for the nomination formalities to be

completed. Even the verification of the person can be avoided

if any money involved is transferred to the account linked to

that Aadhaar ID.

Notarisation of documents

The primary purpose of notarisation is to ensure that the

document is an authentic copy and the person signing could be

prosecuted if the information therein is incorrect. This requires

you to submit physical paper documents, whereas the desire is

Anil Seth

Aadhaar Could Simplify

Life in Important Ways

By: Dr Anil Seth

The author has earned the right to do what interests him. You

can find him online at http://sethanil.com, http://sethanil.

blogspot.com, and reach him via email at [email protected].