It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens, millions of whom live in remote villages and possess no documentary proof of existence, with cyber-age biometric identity cards. The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion.
What's even better is that an Ernst & Young partner worked on one of the pilot "schemes" as the Times Online puts it. So obviously this causes us to speculate about the following:
- How involved is E&Y in this current plan to identify every single human being in India?
- Will they also secretly somehow implant tracking chips by issuing 10-key calculators to every person when the cards are issued?
- Will the Two-Minute Hate be directed at the other Big 4 firms?
- And the most obvious question: How is Goldman Sachs involved?
Hey, I forgot to add to the accounting shwag list that I also have a regulation BDO-issued tin foil hat that I got at our last Meet the Firms event. So, you know, might come in handy.
ReplyDeleteGoldman is going to start shorting Indian customer service call centers.