BIOMETRIC GOVERNMENTALITIES: THE RISE OF DATAFICATION AND THE UNIQUE HEALTH IDENTIFICATION PROJECT IN INDIA

Resumen

The Indian state’s move towards the digitalisation of the health sector has serious implications for how health care is availed and experienced by the people, especially the poor. When biometric identity systems are established for authorisation and verification, people are forced to meet the demands of technical systems for accessing healthcare. What kinds of relations are formed through these biometric-based information assemblages? What are the materialities of patient data and experiences within these information assemblages? How health data is organised, accessed, and controlled within the territorialities of the digital? This paper will look into the rise of datafication of health information and the making of biometric-based Unique Health Identification Number (UHID) in India with the case of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and the subsequent Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA). The ABHA number is a 14-digit identifier distinguishing individuals within India's digital healthcare system. It is a unique identity linked to Aadhaar, facilitating enrolment in Personal Health Records (PHR), and the public insurance scheme -Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). With a case study of the South Indian states of Kerala and Puducherry, the paper investigates the norms of governmentalities in datafication by looking into the requirements and conditions of enrolment into the databases for accessing healthcare. The paper looks at datafication as a technique for population management and problematises how enrolment into health identity systems becomes a condition for citizens' rights to access healthcare.