Mark of the Beast

India's Supreme Court rules privacy is a fundamental right - AP
AP reports: "India’s top court ruled Thursday that privacy is a fundamental right of every citizen, in a landmark judgment that could affect the country’s mammoth identity card system. The verdict was in response to many petitions filed in courts questioning the validity of assigning a biometric identity card to every individual. The government has made the identity card mandatory for all citizens to receive welfare benefits, but human rights groups raised concerns about the risk of personal data being misused. [...] Rights activists hailed the verdict as a win for individual freedom."

Comment: This is a win for the people of India but also something of a disappointment. As a test-case for mark-tech India was making remarkable strides in combining biometric identity verification with a broad range of government services. I saw it as a laboratory for seeing what could be done in this area with off-the-shelf technology combined with sheer government coercion and the outcome was looking rather impressive. The currency system of an entire country was being changed almost overnight and millions of undocumented people were being brought into an online system and given digital identities to secure services and payments. It was an impressive accomplishment. All of that is in doubt now. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.