UID Project of India-a few reflections!

B. RAJARAM M.Tech., IRSE., FIE., FNAE

Fmr. MD Konkan Railway/ Chairman Computer Society of India, Navi Mumbai Chapter/ Member Empowerd Board,ITER Dept of Atomic Energy,Govt of India

Research Scholar

TO

Shri Nandan Nilekani and Shri N. Vittal

UiD Project Government of India

Sub: Sharing a few thoughts for success of the project.

A number symbol scheme for UiD for any human on the planet with a short 6 qualified-digit long string

India is launching in a big way to grant a unique ID for more than a billion population. This gives an opportunity to develop a universal scheme for all humans on the planet to have one ID An attempt to is made to develop an outline for such a scheme.

Identification through a set of parameters which include not only the usual appearance and place of birth, but also profiling the life and the network of relationships with other humans and society makes the picture complete and more reliable.

We need for every human for identifying uniquely

1. Place of birth Lat/Long and Place name with postal address too
   
2. Time of birth time/date/
   
3. Parents UID if UiD not available, complete names and details of address last lived in.
   
4. Given Name and aliases
   
5. Biometric information
1. Frontal close up features of eyes and ears covering the face( similar to German standards for VISA), side profiles both sides Photos updated every 10years.
   
2. All ten finger prints
3. Iris images/DNA/ (Optional)
   
6. Roots-net work of related UiDs of spouse,children, brothers, sisters will be used for security verification and validation.
7. Medical/health condition ( of serious chronic nature) , blood group, disabilities, injury marks
   
8. Education/Profession
9. Current up date citizenship , records, police/judicial proceedings, tax/debt liabilities, residence, family size and linked UiDs
10. Demise time/date/place/mode/certificate

The number will have to be maintained for further period of 5 to 7 years or even longer even after event of item 10 for settling all legal and other transactions pending against the said subject. While the records get archived, for any data mining purpose, the UiD can be released as free for allocation with specific approval of the administrator.

Items 1 to 6 and 9 comprise the minimum information

for a living being for issue of UiD

It seems if we have 10 records for each UID, we may cover all basic requirements of the society. Each record is uniquely identified by the UID followed by the record category ID number.

If we are to provide for 10 billion population of the world , we need a digit of size 1e10 which is too long to handle .

A 5 or 6 digit long string will be more comfortable.

Qualified Digits form a number-symbol

Without using alphabets, because the issue of language comes into picture, an attempt is made to create the needed number of UiDs using non-alphabet options but computer readable and decipherable.

Let a b c d e f be the six digit positions with each of them having values from 0 to 9

Each digit like a or c is chosen by a random number generator and comapred to previously allocated numbers and when different allocated. This we may generate 10 lac numbers but eliminating numbers like all 0's or all 1's and all same digits consecutively for more than 3 times of we may get about usable .say 9 lac numbers.

The lat/lon particulars UiD for birth decides the storage location

We define

Qualifiers are , ' ,, '' ,,, ''' _ +

and when added to a digit, the digit becomes a qualified digit. A set of such six such qualified digits forms the number symbol used as the Unique ID .

, =1e1 and by def the digit a which is qualified takes value of 1e1+a

By def

' =1e2 ,, =1e3 ''=1e4 ,'=1e5 ,''=1e6 ,,' =1e7 ,,''=1e8

To the above set now with under score added

anothe 8 series making it 16 series with each having 10 values for 0 to 9 values of the digit position. That means instead of 0 to 9 with only 10 values we can represent 160 or even 240 if we use instead + and with both + and underscore 320 records can be addressed.

So with one digit position one can cover all available nations on the planet

The second location b is used for regional centre ID and in similar way we can have a maximum of 300 regions for a country formed represented by lat/lan boundaries for each rectangle shaped one, chosen to have a max population of not more than 10 million. So more densely populated ares will have more number of regions each with lesser areas as compared to sparsely populated areas.

Thus country ID and regional ID are allocated in the UiD based on the lat / long of the birth of the subject.

Rest of the 4 digits are now along with their qualifiers can provide in excess of a 100 m (though we need only 10 to 20 m for each region) of Unique ID values with the algorithm implementing the scheme.

With unqualified number system we get only 10x10x10x10 =10000 But with a capacity to take 100 values in place of 10 we get for the 4 symbol positions 100x100x100x100=1e8

So we will never run out of unique ID representation.

The first number symbol which represents country is the indirect addressing for the country's record mapped in computer data base.

In a country the citizen will have only 5 digits with qualifiers as UiD because the first symbol is common to all citizens within a country.

Perhaps we can even use the four symbol positions only to give all India based UiD dropping out the regional code by using all the 200 levels of addressing and allocating sets of series region wise.

We can address 200x 200x200x200=16e8 which is equal to 160 cr Still we have reserve ID number symbols.

With proposed number symbols we can reach

300x300x300x300=71e8 or 7b

So by having a regional sub division we can easily handle loads of 10 or 20 m IDs having fewer qualifiers for number symbols.

A typical UiD in this scheme may look like 7,'' 5'',,6,'7,92

which is unique number-symbol for a human on the planet.

The UiD card will just have this number symbol, and verification through database is possible either by swiping such a card or by entering through keyboard. Putting name on the card is a debatable issue. A matter of choice.

Data collection and management centers

In India our experience shows that the outsourced methods used for data collection and issue of voter cards, ration cards etc proved to be a disaster. The percentage of gross mistakes wanton or otherwise, cannot be tolerated in UiD project. The infrastruture needed for this has to be carefully calibrated and data corruption at the very time of collection, between collection and transmission . and also during compilation has to be eliminated. The process of verfiication and validation should not end up as an expensive time consuming self-defeating one. Multiple UiDs for the same person should not get issued. Audit trail and accountability for those who manage the collection of data , manage and issue the UiD should be clear and specific.

An outline of such an organisation and technology use to eliminate mistakes is outlined.

For a country of the size of India, we will need at least 400 regional centers

Each one will have 20 to 30 mobile equipment mounted air conditioned vans to act as data collection , verification and validating offices.

Each such mobile office will have dish antenna /3G/ wimax connectivity with the regional office servers for the computers within the van.

The high definition webcam, with a predesigned frame for a person to hold his face, for obtaining the images as per standards, finger print scanners directly load the data and images into the regional computers at the end of the verification and transmission from the van.

A local revenue official and a police official will form part of team and granted temporary secure pass word to clear the hurdle of verification and validation. Corroborative documents like ration cards, or passports too get scanned and form part of data base. At no stage paper work will be involved.

Paper work creates a false sense of security, producing tons of paper , consuming time too, but making it impossible to pin point accountability later on, because storage and management of the paper bundles produced will prove to be a bigger challenge.

The workflow is so organised that by the time the citizen moves from one counter to the third counter, he will get his UiD card and leaves.

The data entry may have to be made in regional languages too, for which the software must be enabled. Like in election duty, staff for varying periods will have to be drawn from central and state services, with additional allowance, for temporary duty not exceeding 3 to 4 weeks. Help of Postal Employees will be most desirable. But the entire effort has to be based on government service personnel and not on temporary hired help of a non-descript IT company involving tendering and award of contracts. My own experience in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh of the results obtained using such private process was horrendous. We get unreliable results and no one is traceable to be accountable and funds anyway spent away.

The hardware selection, the networking of the systems, the data input equipment, the software and the relational database are all the major concerns to be addressed and a robust infrastructure created. The quality assurance and user friendly interface for the data entry is extremely important. Most of our IT companies for some reason make the interface screens extremely complicated, fit only for another IT person. A computer illiterate should be able to handle. More care and attention is needed.

It may take this infrastructure to come into position about 18 months and then another 24 months to cover the billion population.

Minimum permanent staff who are needed to maintain the system and update will be needed after the initial launch. But this also will be substantial considering the geographical spread and population size, requiring annual issue of fresh UiDs for newly born.

This will be a mammoth task. After spending both money and time and having such infrastructure, if UiD is only a matter of choice, and again the UiD proved to be not so reliable that every organisation will need to depend on their own means for identifying a person, it would be a shame.

We all have high hopes and expectations that such pitfalls will not happen in the UiD project.

With regards,

Sd B. Rajaram
www.atrrilab.com
Dt 18th Nov. 2009