Unique Identification: Inclusion and surveillance in the Indian biometric assemblage

Abstract

The last decade has seen an increased focus on secured forms of identification in security governance, leading to a massive growth and standardization in the application of biometric technologies globally. This article examines what is currently the largest biometric technology project in the world: the nationwide Unique Identification (UID) number system in India. It emphasizes the importance of investigating the postcolonial contexts of governance in which biometric technology is currently being applied. Approaching the Indian scheme as a discursive/practical assemblage of multiple actors and rationales, the article investigates three contexts within which the biometric project emerged: India’s Home Ministry, the Unique Identification Authority of India and a project focusing on the biometric identification of homeless people in Delhi. In particular, the article examines the various targets of intervention constructed in the discourses and practices of the national ID scheme. It is argued that the practice of biometric identification is produced as a solution to a wide array of problems of governance, both as a means of financial inclusion and as a method of surveillance.

FoucaultianDispositifsas Methodology: The Case of Anonymous Exclusions by Unique Identification in India

“…The liberalizing economic policies pursued in India, and the rise of a new consumer middle class during the 1990s, have been well documented (Fernandes )—inclusion is now being extended to the urban and rural poor. The deployment of UID is also commensurate with longstanding agendas from the World Bank and other international institutions where the construction of technical infrastructure is a vital component of development discourses (Jacobsen ). Yet, as I intend to show below, we can also uncover a more repressive or violent side to the program, what Richmond (:200) calls a moment of exclusion exactly when inclusion is being offered.…”

“…Governing through biometric technologies is widespread and has long been a feature of government in some places—in South Africa, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Macao, for instance—where the technology has acted as part of a “fantasy of administrative panopticism—the urgent desire to complete and centralize the state's knowledge of its citizens” (Breckenridge :271). With the introduction of digital biometrics, national programs are underway across South Asia, Africa, and South America (Jacobsen :458); programs are in use for checkpoint security within peacebuilding settings (Pugliese :87); much has also been written of biometric border controls in the United States and Europe (Amoore ; Pugliese ; Vaughan‐Williams ). The proliferation of biometric programs is facilitated by technology firms such as M2SYS () and Accenture () who market products that are transferable across terrains ranging from Nigerian voter registration to European visa management to Iraqi border security.…”

“…The proliferation of biometric programs is facilitated by technology firms such as M2SYS () and Accenture () who market products that are transferable across terrains ranging from Nigerian voter registration to European visa management to Iraqi border security. In fact, this transnational adoption of biometric technology masks the varied circumstances in which the strategic need for reliable identity verification emerges and how, in particular, the Indian government seeks to enact a biometric program that encompasses not just borders, visas or voters, but “the identity management of an entire population in a diverse social, political and geographical landscape” (Jacobsen :458).…”

“…The UID program in India is twofold: the NPR and the UIDAI. The Home Ministry's sponsorship of the NPR is driven by the imperative to increase national security by extending surveillance from the physical border regions to the entirety of India's internal population movements (Jacobsen :462). In this sense, the uptake of UID reflects similar security imperatives to those identified by other governments who have employed biometric technology at the border, such as the United States ESTA or the United Kingdom eBorders programs (Vaughan‐Williams ).…”

“…Biometric identification in India emerged through the colonial practices of surveillance and identification under the British Raj. Developed during the mid‐nineteenth century in India to constitute a new classificatory knowledge (Pugliese :18; Jacobsen :460), the technology of biometric surveillance was subsequently integrated into policing within Britain before being transported across the world (Sengoopta :6). While the habitual identification of residents may have been unthinkable in Europe, the British Raj considered the Indian population to be “another matter” where “unquestioned authority went hand in hand with pervasive fears of being deceived by the populace” (Sengoopta :204).…”