Conclusion and Further Research Conclusions and Further Research 4. Conclusion & Further Research While our surveys answered important questions about the user experience, they also raised new and additional questions that will require further research. Residents expressed satisfaction with Aadhaar and trust Improvements in on-the-ground processes related to Aadhaar in the system, despite ongoing difficulties, but emerging can significantly enhance the lives of many residents in India. The concerns need to be addressed. With Aadhaar, some social safety net could be appreciably strengthened for the nation’s residents gained first-time access to ID, and many have seen most vulnerable groups—such as people who have low levels of Our research methodology focused on residents’ perceptions and experiences. Our findings can represent only improvements in the reliability of welfare service and access education, are homeless, or identify as third gender—by offering what people know and feel, whereas much of what affects the functioning of Aadhaar relies on the actors and to private-sector services. People appreciate the convenience additional support to those who need Aadhaar but cannot acquire systems in the background—from the design and security of the biometric database to internet connectivity at of a single card that is universally accepted and trust that the it. Streamlining the Aadhaar updating process can prevent some a ration shop or a bank branch manager’s understanding of mapping accounts to Aadhaar for DBT payments. Aadhaar system protects their data as well as access to their service denials and save time that residents can put to better use. In some cases, deliberate misuse of infrastructure and information has been reported, e.g., when a ration shop benefits. Almost everyone is satisfied with Aadhaar, including As more services are linked to Aadhaar, easy access as well as owner incorrectly claims that biometric authentication failed.82 In other cases, implementers on the ground may a majority of people who face difficulties. Nevertheless, many seamless updating and authentication will become only more critical. be struggling due to lack of information or resources. None of these processes (or systemic shortcomings) are people who appreciate Aadhaar’s benefits also worry about While digital troubleshooting options can sometimes help, their necessarily visible to our respondents, and understanding them requires a different methodology. the challenges and risks of linking too many services with a effectiveness is limited because a substantial share of the population single ID. To maintain or improve people’s experience and has low digital awareness, access, and literacy. perceptions, it will be important to make sure that everyone While our surveys gave us great reach across a large number of households in most Indian states, a questionnaire-based interview is limited in the nuance it can achieve. Facts and perceptions can be drawn out, who wants and needs Aadhaar can obtain it and correct it when Variations in how states implement Aadhaar represent an but closed-ended questions are rarely able to uncover underlying assumptions, drivers and motivations; at this necessary, and that using Aadhaar for services is streamlined. opportunity to innovate and learn from each other’s successful scale, one cannot stop an interview to ask “Why?” Thus, many questions remain unanswered—and some new practices. Although Aadhaar is a centrally administered national ones have emerged from our data. Individuals who do not have Aadhaar or who face difficulties ID, the user experience is local: different states implement Aadhaar in using it are often those most in need of government in very distinct ways. There is merit to this practice, given that the We used our human centred design research to investigate where the greatest opportunities for support. Aadhaar is deeply embedded in Indian life and capacity and readiness for digital transformation vary greatly across improvement lie and to gather initial inspiration for how those challenges might be alleviated. works for most people most of the time. However, when it does states—from both an administrative and a resident point of view. not work, it most affects those who are already vulnerable. Different approaches to implementation present an opportunity to Marginalised groups, such as people who are homeless or third innovate on a smaller scale. There is also potential for Aadhaar gender, have lower enrolment rates; people with lower levels to support greater interstate integration and portability of welfare of education have more errors. Since Aadhaar is mandatory for and other services. This journey has already started; for example, many services that are intended to support the most vulnerable PDS portability (enabled by Aadhaar authentication) is being members of society, it is all the more critical to ensure that implemented across state boundaries. As innovation and integration Aadhaar reaches and works for these people. progress, states and union territories will have the opportunity to learn and adopt best practices from each other. Making Aadhaar mandatory can lead to exclusion from welfare and other services—and place an additional burden on residents. Such mandates should therefore be carefully considered. Some residents face service exclusion or denial because they don’t have (correct) Aadhaar or because of problems using it. Fingerprint authentication fails for a significant share of transactions. System and technology failures can be exacerbated when providing Aadhaar is mandatory (since there are few alternatives). This can place an additional burden on residents, who are otherwise legitimate beneficiaries of the service. Every decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for service provision should therefore be carefully considered—along with readily available fall back options when processes or technology fail—so that Aadhaar’s promise to its holders can be upheld. The following are some of the questions we explored through this process: • • • • • What is the human impact of exclusion? Why are almost all people satisfied with Aadhaar even if their experience is not always positive? How much does low awareness matter for residents? What, if any, Aadhaar-related challenges are residents experiencing but not able to attribute to Aadhaar? The HCD research also brought some new questions to light: • What does Aadhaar mean for people’s identity? How does it affect the ways in which they view their • What are people’s expectations of Aadhaar? What does it mean to be satisfied with Aadhaar? place in society? Beyond these questions, many others remain open for future research. Among them are: • • • • • • • • 81. 37 Why has Aadhaar become the default ID even where it is not mandatory? What drives state-level and service-level differences in experience? How well do back-end Aadhaar processes function? What is the experience of those who administer Aadhaar and Aadhaar-linked services? How could residents become more empowered to understand and assert their Aadhaar-related rights? How will awareness and usage of Aadhaar’s newer digital features develop? To what extent can perceived benefits and challenges be attributed to Aadhaar? What are residents’ worries about privacy and surveillance with respect to Aadhaar? To what extent has Aadhaar benefitted government? To what extent has Aadhaar benefitted private-sector actors? share of people who attempted the process and said that enrolment and/or updates were easy. Aadhaar-related exclusion from services: share of people who have experienced exclusion from a service due to Aadhaar. Net satisfaction with Aadhaar: share of people who were satisfied minus share of people who were dissatisfied with Aadhaar (SoA pulse survey 2019). Source: Anumeha Yadav, Can biometrics stop the theft of food rations? No, shows Gujarat (published on Scroll.in), 17th December 2016 38