What is it like to live in the worlds biggest experiment in biometric identity?
More than a billion people are registered under India’s Aadhaar—but many are falling through the cracks
In this episode, we look at some of the people who have been most affected by the introduction of Aadhaar, an identity system that is as large and diverse as India itself. It’s so vast in scope and ambition that, inevitably, there have been cracks that people have fallen through.
When you’re poor, proving who you are can be a tense and frustrating process. This has always been true, but with Aadhaar, that process has become an inescapable part of life. If you’re a migrant trying to earn a living selling goods on the roadside, you’re asked to prove who you are before you can set up shop; if you’re disabled, you need to prove your disability to collect benefits. And for children who want to go to school—or their parents, who want their children to have a good education, to secure their future—it might seem like proving identity shouldn’t be more important than that right to learn. Unfortunately, it isn’t. In the age of digital identity systems like Aadhaar, even learning isn’t as easy to access as it once was.
In this episode, Padmaparna Ghosh speaks to parents, teachers, and social workers trying to get children the education that India deems a fundamental right. How do you prove who you are—even if all you want is your right to learn?
https://howwegettonext.com/what-is-it-like-to-live-in-the-worlds-biggest-experiment-in-biometric-identity-ef2490372819
