Transparency and Accountability vs. Privacy

“Big data” projects generally, and biometric schemes in particular, have faced intense scrutiny and opposition the world over. Apart from posing fairly obvious threats to civil liberties and constitutional freedoms, they are prone to more practical errors around reliability, security, accuracy and access. India is one example of a country on the cusp of a radical shift towards increasing digitisation and e-governance, seemingly without much thought being given to the potential dangers of such...