What have they been promised, reward or threat?

The architect of the Indian biometric identification card Aadhaar, N Nilekani wrote that it is a "universal digital infrastructure, not just a scheme". Why is he making this distinction? Because he thinks that the government should make money from it by allowing private players to use it. Just because the government builds highways does not mean that "only State-owned vehicles will drive on it". When the state cannot deliver services the private sector steps in but their services are available only to the elite. Allowing private players to use Aadhaar will increase "universal oversight". "The Aadhaar system does not collect the specific purpose of your authentication, or the location of your transaction so there is no way the system can construct where you were and what you were doing," wrote S Nadhamuni, also associated with setting up this system. Therefore, Aadhaar can never be used to spy on us, these two try to convince us. But, "Aadhaar is not so dumb," wrote Prof I Rajaraman. "To use Nilekani's phrasing, it does indeed offer a deep profile on a person because it has now been linked to the permanent account number (PAN) and through that to the entire direct tax record of the person, to mobile numbers and therefore to the entire telephone records of the person, to all bank accounts, and all financial instruments, debit and credit cards." Online service providers have records of our "likes, browsing patterns and desires", wrote Nilekani. According to some surveys over 75% of people lie on social media. Nothing Google or Facebook can do about it. Fingerprints and iris scans cannot lie and we will be arrested if we lied to the government. "Apps from Google, Facebook, Apple and thousands of other companies are also able to track smartphone user location using GPS sensors," wrote Nadhamuni. We can switch off smartphones or use a Nokia 3310, but the government has made Aadhaar mandatory for everything from buying train tickets to using a credit card in a restaurant. "I would much rather trust the State's institutions" wrote Nilekani. He is one of the 85% of Indians who trust the government. But that is not the point. Zuckerberg or Sergey Brin, or indeed Donald Trump can do nothing to us but the government can and does. The Supreme Court described the CBI as a "caged parrot" which harasses opponents while protecting the government. Anyone traveling to the US or to Europe need to provide fingerprints and photograph, but only a tiny minority travel abroad. If Amazon or HSBC are allowed to use the Aadhaar infrastructure biometric details of every Indian will be available to the US and European governments. So why are Nilekani and Nadhamuni betraying fellow citizens by defending this pernicious system? What have they been promised?