Smart Card National IDs for India

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Smart Cards: the precursor of the Subdermal Microchip, the Mark of the Beast.


An identity for all: India ID project fights dust, doubt

April 28, 2010
MUMBAI (Reuters) - As India gears up to build the largest biometric database in the world with the aim of providing most of its 1.2 billion citizens a Unique Identification (UID), perhaps the biggest challenge is smudged fingerprints.

The UID Authority of India will issue the first UIDs linked to a person's demographic and biometric information between August and February, and issue about 600 million such IDs over the next five years to help verify citizens quickly and cheaply. It will be a boon for companies and government agencies alike.

It would give millions of Indians the means to open a bank account, buy a mobile phone, and access welfare services easily, while saving companies and government agencies the expensive and time-consuming process of verifying and establishing identities.

The project, which has drawn the interest of mobile services firms and technology giants including Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft and Google, is expected to better target and reduce waste in India's multi-billion dollar welfare schemes, including pensions.

"There is a concern that a lot of the welfare benefits that the government provides don't reach the intended beneficiaries because you can't correctly identify them," said Ajit Ranande, chief economist of the Aditya Birla Group in Mumbai.

"The UID will hopefully enable better targeting, identification of beneficiaries, and plug leakages. If you can improve targeting by even 5-10 percent, it would be a big deal."….”

See:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63R6G920100428?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FworldNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+International%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

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