(Governments around the world are implementing digital identity programs that don't work)
Aadhaar is India's national biometric identity database, with over one billion records comprising fingerprints, iris scans and basic demographic information. It is presented as identity technology, allowing an individual to identify themselves, but also as an identification technology, allowing the state to see an individual, identify fraudulent welfare beneficiaries, and thus realise savings. These claims are not complementary. They are in fact contradictory, compromising each other. If one must be true, the other must somehow be false, and this is the reality of Aadhaar.
