This one's got some spice to it...
Well, despite the ability of the Government to track any individual, the sheer volume of India’s population makes the Government’s task fairly difficult. The inability of police forces to track wanted criminals is a case in point. The fact remains, if someone wants to disappear in India, it is not difficult.
And there is a second argument. In this ultra-connected era where we willingly put up information about ourselves; where we are, what we are doing, who we are with; is privacy really that important. Or is it just a concern of a few highly-educated conspiracy theorists?
The fact is that many countries have a national identity system, most famously the US’s Social Security Number, and while the Aadhaar number might give the Government a lot of information about its citizens, particularly biometric data, as long as that information can be securely stored, that is a cost I, and I believe most citizens are willing to pay. As for the tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists, well, in a country the size of India the one thing that surprises me is that there are not more of them.
