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Abstract. Free online access to legal information is approaching maturity in some parts of the world, after two decades of development, but elsewhere is still in its early stages of development. Nowhere has it been realised fully. The main question asked in this paper is what should "free access" mean in relation to legal information in order for it to be fully effective? As with software, we must ask whether free access to law is "free as in beer, or free as in speech?" The six most significant attempts over the last twenty years to answers this question are analysed to show that a substantial degree of international consensus has developed on what "free access to legal information" now means. Of thirty separate identifiable principles, most are found in more than one statement of principles, and many are now relatively common in the practices of both States and providers of free access to legal information (government and NGO). Many concern measure to avoid the development of monopolies in publication of the core legal documents of a jurisdiction. Which principles are essential to the meaning of "free access to legal information", and which are only desirable, is usually clear. Two complementary meanings of "free access to legal information" emerge. The first states the obligations of the State in relation to ensuring free access to legal information -but not necessarily providing it. The key elements concern the right of republication. The second meaning states the conditions under which an organisation can correctly be said to be a provider of free access to legal information. We argue that a better definition is needed than the "consensus" suggests, and propose one based on the avoidance of conflicts 2 with maximisation of the quality and quantity of free access. One use of such a set of principles is to help evaluate the extent to which any particular jurisdiction has implemented free access to legal information. A brief example is given of Australia, a county with a generally good record but some deficiencies. Finally the paper considers what steps should be taken to most effectively realise a reformulated concept of "free access to legal information", by civil society, by States at the national level, and at the international level.

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This article traces the contours of a new biometric project in India that aims to develop a universal biometric database for the unique identification of India's residents (UID, The Indian Unique Identification Project). It was launched in 2009 and by mid-2013 registered 430 million enrolments, making it the largest biometric experiment in the world. What are the rationale for and the structure of this new instrument of governance, and how does it affect the relation between citizens and state institutions? We discuss the legal framing of the project and present an ethnographic case study about its implementation among poor people in Delhi. We argue that within the heterogeneous social space of India the biometric project has opened up a terrain for multiple social negotiations. While the new technology propels fantasies about a corruption-free well-ordered society the implementation runs up against innumerable challenges. The project struggles to find a definite legal form and suitable goals. Furthermore, the emerging link between people, computer generated data and projects of governance remains weak. By unpacking the relation between new technologies, emerging legalities, cultural bodies and social classifications, we evidence that UID is not one but many projects. Rather than a truth statement about identity UID is a ground for testing new relations between citizens and the state. They concern the political question of the desire for order versus fear of control, and the epistemological question of the inter-relation between regimes of transparency and social complexity.

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