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Re:Amazon Is Asking Indians to Hand Over Their Aadhaar Biome... by _jgdh on Thursday November 30, 2017 @02:54AM (#15814107)
It’s not exactly the same. Authentication with SSN is simple - SSN + date of birth/name/mother’s maiden name. All of these are immutable so you’d better hope that any firm that collects this information is careful with it. With Aadhaar, authentication is marginally better - either with biometrics (fingerprint or retinal scan) or with an SMS OTP. Identity fraud is still possible but it isn’t scalable, thankfully.

There is still a concern though. If every service that you consume uses Aadhaar as a primary key, it becomes trivial to track the movements and activities of every citizen. I’m certain that for a fee to a shady person you’d get a dossier of places a person has been, where they’ve stayed, who they’ve spoken to, what they’ve spent money on. That’s not theoretical - you can get this info on a Chinese citizen today for less than $100 if you know whom to talk to.

Re:Amazon Is Asking Indians to Hand Over Their Aadhaar Biome... by intended on Thursday November 30, 2017 @04:26AM (#15814486)
How is ID fraud not scalable in this case?
Re:Amazon Is Asking Indians to Hand Over Their Aadhaar Biome... by beojan on Thursday November 30, 2017 @05:00AM (#15814648)
Because you'd have to clone SIM cards / otherwise gain access to someone's text messages instead of just using a bulk list of "secret question" answers.
Re:Amazon Is Asking Indians to Hand Over Their Aadhaar Biome... by plaguuuuuu on Thursday November 30, 2017 @07:21AM (#15815161)
just need a shitty telco to do a # transfer.

I've also heard Verizon, or maybe another American company, also offers access to SMS via the website? That's a disaster waiting to happen.