Im Chaos Computer Club Berlin findet heute Abend ein Votragsabend – „Datengarten“ – statt, welcher sich mit den Bestrebungen der indischen Regierung auseinandersetzt eine umfangreiche Datenbank der Bevölkerung inkl. biometrischer Daten anzulegen. Der Referent Sumandro Chattapadhyay forscht zum Themenbereich Informationspolitik in Indien im Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Dehli.

Der Vortrag beginnt um 20h und findet in englischer Sprache statt. Aus der Ankündigung:

What kind of ‚database state‘ is the Indian government creating?

A discussion of the Aadhaar project as a digital identity platform for governance

As part of my larger academic interest in the history of electronic governance and computing by the Government of India since 1960s, I have been studying the making and activities of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). UIDAI was instituted in 2009 to assign unique biometrics- linked identification numbers, branded as Aadhaar numbers, to all the residents of India. The growing literature about this Aadhaar project focus on various topics such as implications for citizenship, for efficiency of governmental services, for formalisation and unification of unorganised banking and welfare-accessing practices. As opposed to socio-legal critiques offered by most researchers and activists in India, I discuss the technological imagination and the materiality of the database system being designed and deployed as part of the Aadhaar project. I argue that it is crucial to develop a close understanding of the specific form of data collection, management, archiving, sharing by the Aadhaar project and the software infrastructure it is building to enable various government and commercial agencies to implement a single identity platform for tracking their interactions with citizens/consumers. […]