Read the Telangana govt’s Unified Card press release here: [ X | Facebook ]
The Telangana (TG) government proposed ‘Unified Card’, a state-level Aadhaar-like AI-based welfare aggregation and citizen profiling system for dynamic tracking of 360-degree state beneficiary data. On May 27, Telangana CM Revanth Reddy and State IT Minister D. Sridhar Babu met Chief Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao to discuss implementing a Unified Card project.
TG aims at Aadhaar-like state-level data: “He asked to explore, if needed, creating a state-level unique identity number on the lines of Aadhaar. The data from the Socio-Economic, Education, Employment, Political, and Caste (SEEEPC) Survey should also be merged with the Unified Card profile.”
Data collection drive for 360-degree data tracking: “He instructed for initiating a special drive to collect individual and family-oriented data of all citizens in the state. The data collection drive shall act as a precursor to the creation of the first-ever AI-based profiling system for dynamic tracking of 360-degree beneficiary data,” read the press release. The State’s IT Department will be responsible for the creation of Unified Cards.
The Unified Card will compile individual profiles with data points across welfare departments, including:
- AarogyaSri,
- Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF),
- Fees Reimbursement,
- Labour and Education.
Using AI-based profiling to track death certificates and pension disumberments as one of the use cases: “The CM shared an example use case for the AI-based profiling system—ensuring that issuance of a death certificate is automatically routed to the database pertaining to Cheyutha pensions.” Cheyutha refers to the social security and welfare program that aims to provide monthly financial assistance to permanent residents of Telangana who fall under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) and have a white ration card.
Some more specific use cases of Unified Card:
- Eliminating benefit duplication
- Identifying ineligible individuals
- Reducing bureaucratic delay
- Eliminating human interface
- Centralized welfare delivery assessment
- Contract and outsourcing employee profiling
- Health profile integration
- Migration ecosystem management, especially to reduce the involvement of “unauthorised persons and agents”
- Cross-departmental tracking of individual benefits drawn from schemes.
This is a permanent state surveillance infrastructure, argues SQ Masood, Hyderabad-based human rights activist, while referring to the Telangana government’s announcement of Unified Card. “Consolidating sensitive data across health, caste & entitlements under one ID creates an unconstitutional panopticon & enables discrimination. This directly violates the landmark Puttaswamy judgment,” he further said on X.
Risks of AI-driven automated discrimination of poor: “Furthermore, the Court [in the Puttaswamy judgment] explicitly…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
