The Standing Committee on Finance Branch, Lok Sabha Secretariat has responded to the suggestions offered by CIS on the National Identification Authority of India, Bill 2010 and has requested it to mail its views by 14 October 2011.
On January 6, 2011, CIS had sent an open letter to the Parliamentary Finance Committee demonstrating how the Aadhaar biometric standard is weaker than the SCOSTA standard. The text of the reply is reproduced below.
Sir,
This is in response to one of the views/suggestions offered by CIS on the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010.
CIS View /Suggestion:
"Though the Aadhaar biometrics are useful for the de-duplication and identification of individuals, the Smart Card Operating System for Transport Application [(SCOSTA), developed by the National Informatics Centre in India)] standard is a more secure, structurally sound, and cost-effective approach to authentication of identity for India. Therefore, the Aadhaar biometric based authentication process should be replaced with a SCOSTA standard based authentication process."
In this regard, do you agree with the following view? If not, please justify.
"Comparison between SCOSTA and the UID project are not valid since SCOSTA is fundamentally a standard for smart card based authentication and does not work for the objectives of the unique id project.
The UID project follows a different approach and has multiple objectives - providing identity to residents of India, ensuring inclusion of poor and marginalized residents in order to enable access to benefits and services, eliminating the fakes, duplicates and ghost identities prevalent in other databases and provide a platform for authentication in a cost effective and accessible manner.
UIDAI is not issuing cards or smart cards. Cards can be issued by agencies that are providing services. UID authentication does not exclude smart cards - service providers can still choose to issue smart cards to their beneficiaries or customers if they want to."
You are requested to email your view by 14 October, 2011 positively.
Standing Committee on Finance Branch
Lok Sabha Secretariat
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## Context and Background
On 6 January 2011, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) sent an open letter to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance concerning the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010. Among its suggestions, CIS argued that although Aadhaar biometrics could be useful for de-duplication and identification, the Smart Card Operating System for Transport Application (SCOSTA) standard was a more secure, structurally sound, and cost-effective approach to authentication in India. CIS therefore suggested replacing the Aadhaar biometric-based authentication process with a SCOSTA-based approach.
The Standing Committee on Finance Branch of the Lok Sabha Secretariat responded to this suggestion and asked CIS to provide its views by 14 October 2011. The response reproduced on this page specifically questions the validity of comparing SCOSTA with the UID project, arguing that the two were designed for different purposes.
According to the Committee's response, SCOSTA was fundamentally a standard for smart card-based authentication, whereas the UID project had multiple objectives. These included providing identity to residents of India, promoting inclusion of poor and marginalised residents in accessing benefits and services, eliminating fake, duplicate and ghost identities in other databases, and providing a cost-effective and accessible platform for authentication.
The response also clarified that UIDAI was not issuing cards or smart cards. Instead, service providers could choose to issue smart cards to their beneficiaries or customers if they wished to do so. The Committee therefore maintained that the UID authentication approach did not exclude the use of smart cards, but treated them as an option that could be adopted by individual service providers.
The exchange illustrates a specific point of disagreement in the 2011 debate over India's proposed national identification framework: whether a smart card authentication standard such as SCOSTA could appropriately be compared with the broader objectives and architecture of the UID project. The page preserves the Committee's response to CIS's earlier submission rather than presenting an independent assessment of the competing positions.
## External Link
- [SCOSTA and UID Comparison not Valid, says Finance Committee](https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/scosta-uid-comparison-invalid) on CIS website
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