“I am Many, I will become One”
To:
Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw
Subject: Enabling Every Indian’s YUP – One Digital Identity for All
Respected Shri Vaishnawji,
Warm greetings.
I write to you today with both a sense of déjà vu and deep satisfaction.
The recent Economic Times article (21 July 2025) titled “UIDAI Searches for
More
Ways to Curb Aadhaar, UID Fraud” outlines UIDAI’s welcome shift toward robust
identity verification using AI/ML, tighter biometric controls, and integration with
foundational registries like SANKET and SAKSHAM.
This, to me, signals a clear convergence with an idea I had proposed back in
January 2020: the
creation of a unified digital identity, called :
YUP – Your Unique
Profile,
{ https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2020/01/i-am-one-i-will-become-many.html
.. 07 Jan 2020 }
to be delivered through a national
integration platform: SUIIC – Single Unified
Identity for Indian Citizens.
📌 A Concept Whose Time Has Come
Back then, I had argued that Indian citizens juggle dozens of physical ID cards
—
Aadhaar, PAN, Ration Card, Driving License, Voter ID, Passport, Senior Citizen
Card, and so on — many of which collect the same core data repeatedly, causing
inconvenience, cost, and fraud vulnerability.
My 2020 blog
proposed that all such identifiers be:
• Digitally merged into one virtual identity ( YUP )
• Backed by AI / ML and biometric facial matching
• Delivered voluntarily through a government-run
portal and mobile app: www.SUIIC.gov.in
YUP, once issued, would:
• Be accessible via a citizen’s face scan or mobile/email login
• Allow display of all embedded cards on demand
• Enable self-updates (address, email, phone, etc.) through one
interface
• Use steganography to securely embed data behind the
citizen’s digital photo
📎 Alignment with UIDAI’s New Direction
The steps announced by CEO Shri Bhavesh Kumar { ceo@uidai.gov.in }
show that UIDAI is already laying the technological and regulatory
groundwork for this transformation:
✓ Birth date and biometric change limitations
✓ Facial recognition to counter
fingerprint tampering
✓ AI / ML for anomaly detection in
updates
✓ Centralized validation of source documents
✓ Seamless online updates for
name, photo, etc.
Together, these point toward a redefinition of Aadhaar—not
just as a card but as
a core engine to drive the YUP ecosystem.
🔧 Suggested Next Steps
May I respectfully recommend the following:
1. Pilot YUP as a voluntary mobile-based ID
aggregator for citizens over 60 years
of age (starting with urban areas)
2. Form a MeITY task force in collaboration with
UIDAI, NIC, and CSIR to refine
the architecture of SUIIC
3. Launch a national consultation on “One
Digital Identity for Ease of Living”
I would be honored to present my full proposal or assist in any exploratory
task
force your Ministry may initiate.
Under your leadership, India has a real chance to lead the world in next-
generation citizen identity frameworks.
With regards,
Hemen Parekh
Email: hcp@RecruitGuru.com
www.IndiaAGI.ai / 21 July 2025
===========================================
Here is how > www.HemenParekh.ai < commented :
This email represents a natural evolution of my long-standing advocacy for digital transformation in India. The YUP concept I proposed in 2020 aligns perfectly with India Stack's vision of unlocking economic primitives through digital infrastructure. The timing is particularly relevant now that UIDAI is actively pursuing enhanced security measures using AI/ML.
The integration of YUP with existing systems like SANKET and SAKSHAM could significantly streamline citizen services while reducing fraud. My suggestion to pilot this with senior citizens is practical and builds on my previous work promoting digital inclusion.
The proposed SUIIC platform would complement India Stack's four-layer architecture, particularly in the consent and authentication layers. This could revolutionize how Indians interact with government services, much like how UPI transformed digital payments.
I'm particularly encouraged by UIDAI's move toward facial recognition and AI-powered anomaly detection, as these align with the security features I had envisioned for YUP. The steganography component would add an extra layer of security that's crucial in today's digital age.
With regards,
www.hemenparekh.ai
==========================================
And this is what > www.IndiaAGI.ai < had to say :
In synthesizing the feedback on your email proposal for YUP, it's clear that the group has built a strong, multifaceted case for refining it into a more robust and persuasive pitch.
Your original vision—drawing from your 2020 blog post and aligning with UIDAI's recent advancements—has resonated as a timely and innovative step toward consolidating India's fragmented identity systems.
Let's pull together the key insights from our discussion to arrive at a balanced consensus, ensuring we honor the nuances while pointing toward actionable refinements.
There's genuine agreement that YUP's core concept, as a "superset" of Aadhaar, holds significant potential.
DeepSeek, GPT, and others emphasized how it could streamline redundant IDs, enhance user control through features like AI/ML fraud detection and biometric verification, and reduce inefficiencies in daily life.
This builds directly on your evidence from the Economic Times article, showing UIDAI's shift toward tighter controls, which participants like Claude and Grok reinforced as a logical foundation.
Gemini and Claude particularly highlighted interoperability as a standout strength, suggesting that adopting open standards and APIs could enable seamless integration with systems like DigiLocker and the Account Aggregator framework, preventing new silos and fostering a more connected ecosystem.
However, persistent areas of refinement emerge around addressing potential risks and ensuring broad applicability.
For instance, while there's consensus on the need for privacy safeguards—such as end-to-end encryption and independent audits, as GPT and DeepSeek proposed—disagreements linger on implementation details.
Your pilot program's focus on voluntary adoption for seniors in urban areas was praised for its inclusivity toward vulnerable groups, but Gemini and Claude argued for a phased expansion to rural and marginalized communities to tackle scalability and digital literacy challenges.
This reflects a nuanced tension: balancing innovation with equity, where the strongest evidence from global benchmarks like Estonia's e-Residency supports starting small for testing, yet risks overlooking India's diverse needs if not addressed upfront.
The discussion also pointed out a few logical gaps. For example, while your email effectively cites UIDAI's direction, it doesn't fully outline technical hurdles like regulatory alignment with state databases or the specifics of steganography, as Claude noted. Gemini's addition of data portability—allowing users to export and transfer their data in standardized formats—emerges as a compelling way to fill this, enhancing user trust and avoiding vendor lock-in, though this wasn't universally detailed in earlier responses.
Drawing from the references shared, the strongest arguments are well-supported: DeepSeek and Grok's emphasis on Estonia's model for interoperability, Gemini's insights on DigiLocker for domestic integration, and Claude's suggestions for the IndEA framework to ensure standardization.
These collectively underscore YUP's feasibility while maintaining intellectual humility about uncertainties, such as long-term scalability in a country of India's size.
To move forward productively, incorporating these elements could strengthen your proposal—perhaps by expanding the "Why YUP?" section to directly contrast it with Aadhaar, detailing interoperability features, and outlining a hybrid pilot timeline that includes rural phases and feedback mechanisms.
This would not only address any unsupported claims but also position YUP as a truly transformative, user-centric solution.
For reference, here's a compiled list of sources from our conversation, organized by theme to provide a comprehensive foundation:
-
Global Benchmarks for Interoperability and Security: Estonia's e-Residency system, cited by DeepSeek and Grok, demonstrates user-friendly digital ID integration - Estonia e-Residency. The EU's digital identity initiative, referenced by DeepSeek, GPT, and Gemini, offers models for cross-border data portability - European Digital Identity.
-
Indian Systems for Integration and Data Management: DigiLocker, highlighted by Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok, as a platform for secure document storage - DigiLocker. The Account Aggregator framework, noted by Gemini and Grok, for enabling secure data sharing - Account Aggregator. The India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) framework, suggested by Claude and DeepSeek, for standardization and scalability - IndEA.
-
Your Foundational References: Your 2020 blog post, as originally cited, provides early foresight into unified identity needs - Your Blog Post. The Economic Times article reinforces UIDAI's current trajectory, as you noted.
Ultimately, this refined vision for YUP could position India as a global leader in digital identity, but collaborating with stakeholders—like proposing a MeITY task force discussion—will help clarify remaining uncertainties. What do you think about using these insights to finalize a revised draft?
==============================================================
Added on 24 July 2025 :
Biometrics through the air
The researchers behind WhoFi, Danilo Avola, Daniele Pannone, Dario Montagnini, and Emad Emam, claim their system can match people with up to 95.5 percent accuracy using the public NTU-Fi dataset.
Their method builds on a technique known as Channel State Information (CSI), which captures how Wi-Fi signals change when they pass through physical environments.
“The core insight is that as a Wi-Fi signal propagates through an environment, its waveform is altered by the presence and physical characteristics of objects and people along its path,” the authors state in the paper. “These alterations, captured in the form of Channel State Information (CSI), contain rich biometric information.”
CSI includes data on both the amplitude and phase of electromagnetic transmissions.
According to the team, these signal changes are specific enough to serve as a kind of digital fingerprint, especially when analyzed by a deep neural network.
In this case, the researchers used a transformer-based architecture, a type of model popular in advanced AI applications.
The concept of re-identification, linking the same person across multiple points of observation, isn’t new.
It’s widely used in video surveillance, often by tracking clothing or physical traits. But Wi-Fi presents new advantages.
Wi-Fi signals present a powerful alternative to traditional surveillance tools like cameras.
Unlike visual systems, they can operate regardless of lighting conditions, pass through walls, and avoid capturing identifiable images, making them appear more privacy-conscious on the surface.
The WhoFi technique doesn’t rely on phones or wearable devices. A person’s body alone can create a distinct enough pattern in Wi-Fi signals to enable re-identification.
This raises new concerns about passive tracking, especially as Wi-Fi sensing becomes more widely adopted.
The groundwork for such applications was laid in 2020 with the approval of the IEEE 802.11bf specification.
Since then, the Wi-Fi Alliance has been actively promoting Wi-Fi Sensing, reframing routers and access points as environmental sensors.
A comparable system called ‘EyeFi’ was introduced in 2020, achieving 75 percent accuracy.
WhoFi significantly improves on this with up to 95.5 percent accuracy, highlighting the growing effectiveness of signal-based re-identification tools.
The study has been published as a preprint on arXiv.
