3rd Smart Card Tech India 2003

From national ID to global citizenry

Rajendra Prabhu

NEW DELHI -- Some five millennia ago, the ancient civilisation of Babylon, that produced the first code of civil law, had a problem at hand - how to identify the numerous slaves that thronged the capital of the empire? Lee Hon Kuan, at the security marketing and ID card global major Gemplus, recalls how they solved that problem - by tattooing or branding the face or back of hands of the slaves. Today, our government faces a similar set of problems on hundreds of kilometers over our 13 border states - how to identify the illegal immigrants who stealthily mingle with the local population and claim to be citizens of the country. This is not just a problem of numbers - it has other serious dimensions as well.

At the recently held Smart Card Tech India 2003, Tapan Sikdar, minister of state for the north-eastern region and small scale industry, quoted a predecessor in a different regime about the large scale infiltration from Bangladesh along the West Bengal and Assam border. He added that infiltration had changed the demographic balance in these regions with one particular community growing by 38 percent in the 1981-1991 decade, as against the decennial growth of 24 percent in other parts of the country.

Similar problems of illegal immigration are endemic in other border states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, the Uttar Pradesh-Nepal border, and the western India coastline. This is threatening our security, especially the terrorists who attacked Parliament in December 2001.

The government, desperate to stem the tide and isolate the infiltrators, has turned to the modern miracle of electronics to identify the bona fide citizens along this border track, and thereby, focus on the illegal immigrants. Sikdar points out that, even as far back as the 80s when they were in the opposition, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and deputy prime minister L.K. Advani have been demanding a check on infiltration by using identification cards. The issue has been agitating several governments, and some three years ago, the ministry of Home Affairs asked the premier IT company in the country, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to provide a solution to the problem by creating what the TCS management consultant Viraj R. Chopra defines as "a pillar tall, and wide enough to sustain the national identity system."

Need for a national ID card system

Such a national ID card that identifies the citizen from a non-citizen has enormous legal and constitutional implications. TCS points out that it has to be unique and backed by a database. It has to be secure against forgery or tampering, and the entire programme has to ensure that the ID card is reliable as an identifier. The question that the government asked TCS to solve was - is it possible to construct such a system, given the poor state of existing records; overloaded administration; procedures that conflict with technology; and skepticism over the 'system'? The answer was a huge 'YES' - not just for the Border States but also for the entire country.

As the national programme of an extensive citizen ID card will impinge on the life of each Indian, everyone in the country has a vital stake in the reliability, accuracy, convenience and cost of this gigantic endeavour. There is, of course, a business aspect to it. Such a programme can succeed only if it is based on a public-private partnership. The nation provides security to the citizens, the latter, in turn seek an identity, authentication, and privacy and secure transactions. The card, if made multi-purpose, could be an interface between the two.

"The national ID card is a powerful idea," says Sanjeev Shriya, managing director of Smart Chip Ltd., who was one of the top line participants at the Smart Card Tech India 2003 conference. The conference attracted top government officers including K.P. Singh, additional secretary in the Home Affairs and J.K. Banthia, census commissioner and registrar general who has to implement the scheme. "It provides both, state security and citizen empowerment," adds Shriya.

Other officials and experts in IT endorsed the perception of multiple responsibilities and benefits of the national ID card system. "It will provide synergy between multiple stakeholders, and a powerful tool to the government to fashion welfare programs specially for the unorganised sector," says Dr. Harjit Anand, director, Haryana Institute of Public Administration. The expert, whose experience extends over a wide area of welfare administration, points out that 90 percent of the labour in the country is unorganised - another reason for a tool to reach out to this section by a democratically elected government.

Banthia says, " However, the key issue is the creation of a national database of citizens, and the move towards a national register of Indian citizens and foreign nationals residing here." He asserts that the IT industry must help the government to achieve this gigantic task of listing over one billion people. "The people themselves are the principal stake holders in this endeavour," the registrar-general adds.

So how can we create a database for the entire population of one billion? According to Nishan, a TCS programme, 84 percent of the population is reachable. Of this, 240 million are in urban areas, 471 million are in suburban areas and 134 million are in remote rural areas. Media, telecom, transport and marketing have penetrated all these places in some measure. However, the complexity lay in the 20 percent of the population that is destitute and has negligible identity. How can we capture data from a section that has no recognisable identity? How can we prevent non-citizens from enrolling (and thus torpedoing the very purpose of creating the ID card)? How can we maintain a dynamic database? "Almost each and every eventuality has been deliberated at length to arrive at the proposed implementation mechanism," says Viraj Chopra.

Creating citizens database

Though the obvious choice to build a database of citizens is the electoral card, TCS's scheme does not rely on it for valid reasons. "The electoral card, or for that matter any ID document's success or failure is not gauged by coverage, or cards issued, but by its credibility, acceptance and usage," says TCS's executive. Andhra government's IT advisor T.H. Chaudhary says his state has placed the responsibility for getting the ID card squarely on the beneficiary himself. However, Karnataka government's secretary, Rajiv Chawla, who worked on the digitalisation of land records in one of the most elaborate and successful experiments with IT in rural applications, warns that data from rural areas is not reliable. A survey in this state showed that the number of ration cards were far in excess of the number of population below the poverty line (BPL), and that many families had both the BPL and the above the poverty line (APL) ration cards.

According to the TCS executive, creating a new pillar is the only reliable method to ensure a comprehensive, dynamic and secure database. Thinking out of the box, the TCS formula suggests nurturing a new database independent of the existing transactional records, and emphasises the process of learning as the programme advances instead of providing in advance for every eventuality. The institutional framework with the apex cabinet committee on security, creating a special purpose vehicle for database creation, suggests franchising of the database creation. It further suggests making it an up gradation operation instead of a bureaucratic process with the Parliament enacting legislation for the compulsory registration of citizens and foreign residents.

"We will achieve a secure and unique ID card," says the TCS executive. It would be biometric-ID enabled. In addition, it would be pervasive with no significant loopholes, backed by a computerised database, and capable of dynamic updating and citizen friendly enrollment founded on legislation. The biometric ID would incorporate fingerprint, facial and physical features, in addition to photo ID so that it is tamper proof. The crosschecking of the data in a card with the computerised database would also help isolate fraudsters.

The scheme envisages 20 percent enrollment through the local administration, for which nearly 30 centers per district and a total of 15,000 collection points in the country will be set up. The rest of the collection would be through franchisees. Each collection center will comprise five workstations and the work will commence with initial data capture and subsequent updating over a four-year period. Apart from 15,000 collection points, the network consists of 462 distribution points, 43 access points, five backbones and one central database center. This is certainly going to be a massive operation. Its success will be a tribute to the flexibility, innovation and dedication of the entire establishment and the country to complete a tremendous job.

With a backdrop of periodic general elections in which similar exercises of massive dimensions are involved, there is no doubt about the capability of the country to implement it. What are necessary are determination, a political will, and a person like T.N. Seshan, who forced reluctant state governments to create and distribute electoral cards to each voter, and then convinced the political parties that electronic voting machines were their best bet against electoral fraud. As chief election commissioner, Seshan even threatened the states that he would not conduct elections unless they fulfilled his demand to get electoral cards distributed to all voters. His carrot and stick approach helped to cajole the bureaucracy.

Within TCS, there is disappointment at the slow pace of the pilot project to decide the feasibility of creating such cards and that too only in the Border States. They fear that resistance to reform will build, and force the government to roll back or cancel the programme. TCS said the programme when started, needs to be completed within four years to ensure that the database remains valid - that is about 200 million cards must be issued per year.

Another reason to be optimistic in the country’s ability to create such a database and distribute national ID multi-purpose cards is the existing technology support, the enterprise skills and the experience of creating several other smart cards for other applications. Companies like Datacard, Data Strip, Gemplus, IBM, Infineon, Iris, Shonkh Technologies, SITAR, and others have national and international experience and expertise to create similar systems. SchlumbergerSema is associated with smart cards globally. Its involvement in creating driving licenses, transportation licenses, health care and security access cards, government access cards, banking transaction cards, SIM cards etc., gives it the confidence to deal with the larger and more touchy issues of the national ID card. The government funded National Informatics Centre (NIC) has experience in dealing with databases and equipment, and has the expertise needed to handle such an endeavour.

Creating multi-purpose cards

At the Smart Card Tech conference, executives of each of these organisations strongly urged the creation of multi-purpose cards, while they did not dilute the management challenges of creating, distributing and using these cards. "A complete smart card selection must provide for flexibility, e-business demand, data security and data management - all at a reasonable price," says Lalit Yagnik from IBM's e-business software center. "IBM delivers complete smart card solutions,” Yagnik points out. Gemplus's executive Lee Hon Kuan, links such cards to a larger objective. It would lead to a "comprehensive, nationwide IT infrastructure to support overall e-governance initiatives once the national ID card becomes a secure access key," he insists. These cards would hold biometric data, and bridge the digital and physical identities of citizens, thereby creating a complete and comprehensive citizen database.

"Such an e-governance strategy could involve healthcare, immigration, identification, driver license, e-signature, education and e-purse," adds Lee. As for technology, as IBM's Yagnik points out, though contact cards are most common, contact less cards with inductive power are now available with similar functions. Worldwide trends, says Infineon's Rajeev Khushu, are toward using such cards as e-cash, storage of medical data, educational applications, e-ticketing, pension, welfare, voting, etc.

One of the most interesting sidelights at the presentations in the conference was the technology that generates confidence in the public that these cards are really secure. "Security, but not surveillance," says Gaurav Dua, industry analyst with Frost and Sullivan. Frost and Sullivan's research forecasts that the smart card market in India would grow from 3.7 million units in 2001 to 21.7 million, a growth rate of 72.7 percent by 2005. The majority of smart cards are likely to be used by the telecom sector followed by the banking sector. However, low-end 4K microprocessor cards currently dominate the market.

This will change, as national multi-purpose ID cards will require a high density of information and even higher security technologies. Dua points out that Madhya Pradesh is poised to issue three million smart cards for driver licenses and vehicle registration. Manufactured by ORGA of Germany, Smart Chip Ltd. will implement these cards. "This type of application can be the basis for India's smart card-based national ID system," Dua adds.

Security at the heart of national ID cards

Security is at the heart of these national ID cards because they will ultimately become access cards for entry into other countries. "Security is our core competence," says Infineon 's Khushu. Various sensors, filters, shielding, anti-snooping, cryptography and integrity, memory encryption and protection ensure security. "We are always one step ahead of fraud and hacker attacks," he adds. Infineon has "the most advanced fab cluster in Dresden and is the world leader in 300mm wafer production," he emphasises.

The optical technology that Shonkh Technologies has developed for data protection uses optical watermarks, etching fine line images with optical watermarks overwritten using laser encoded optical images. A covert machine-readable verification within the file ensures easy detection of a counterfeit. It is not possible to remove, photocopy, erase, duplicate or simulate the embedded hologram. The technology also provides visual verification and authentication of printed information. Shonkh's vision is "to provide cost-effective, e-governance solutions adopting the latest technology," says Bratin Chakravorty, vice president, marketing. The little chip on the card that makes all the difference between a smart card and a piece of plastic, can store up to 64Kb of data, including biometric data.

The 2D barcode used by Data Strip Ltd., provides "a cost-competitive solution to the end user to secure information," according to Patrick Gilmore, business development director of the company. This 2D-barcode technology is suited to national ID "as it addresses the requirements that have been highlighted by the government and its consultants," he adds. The substratum is most appropriate to the Indian market. Biometrics like photo, fingerprint, signature, face recognition, head profile, and iris data, can be embedded in the card using this technology, he claims. "Security questions known only to the cardholder can be encrypted into the 2D barcode providing even greater security." No altering is possible.

Integrated circuits are made by SITAR (Society for Integrated Circuits Technology and Applied Research), which produces MIL-grade devices with six-inch wafer processing and accommodates up to 150,000 gates. Its process equipment is capable of going up to 0.7-micron level and produces different types of fabs to meet consumer requirements. The other companies involved have complete solutions with design, manufacture and verification as well. A decision to create and issue such multiple application national ID cards would activate terminal makers like machine reading devices, and verification and authentication devices, and create a culture of smart cards. However, the entire program would not succeed.

A presentation by Infineon Technologies says that so far only Finland and Macau have issued comprehensively serving smart cards. Macau has combined its national ID with the drivers license, border crossing (passport), social healthcare and e-banking, while Finland, in addition to a national ID, has added features in social healthcare, e-governance, e-banking and e-ticketing. Others are following, and contact and contact less cards are now in the market. According to Shirish Rege, Datacard Ltd., a UK-based company, nearly 40 countries are in the process of issuing national ID cards with multiple applications.

"Finland and Malaysia have shown the way to counter the barriers to entry in this field," says Derick Rule, president, Smart Card Society of Southern Africa, a country that has made considerable progress with such ID cards. There are barriers in consumer acceptance, political will, population demographics and legacy systems. The most fascinating part of the new ID card is the biometric identity. "It is a 200-year old concept," Rule says, but applied only in detecting criminals and now universally accepted as the most reliable means of identity for all. "It encompasses the unique characteristics of the human body in a useful way," he emphasises.

A few years back, famous art film and documentary maker Sai Paranjpai made a film on the joy of learning to read and write using a 60-year old village grandfather as the central character in her short film on adult literacy. The old man used to receive a money order every month from his son in the city, and watched by the others in the family, would put his thumb impression on the MO form. However, behind the scenes, he was taking lessons in reading and writing from his grand daughter. Sometime later, when the postman came with the money order, the village was stunned to see the old man sign his name on the MO form. The days of the thumb impression were gone.

However, these are coming back! When the new cards are issued or when your passport is checked 10 years from now, it may not be your signature that will count, but your thumb impression! Biometrics in a multi-faceted ID card, passport, health card, bank card, many other things will soon remind us that what is unique about us is our thumb! Thumbs Up for NID, Sir, and your finger has a tale on it. Had Babylonian king Hamurabi been aware of it five thousand years ago, he may not have branded his slaves with a tattoo to identify them!