Have you nominated for your Online Profile and Digital Assets?

Never Forget to Nominate 

After having worked for more than 35 years in Banking Industry, I know the importance of Nominations in Bank Accounts so that the balances in your saving account, fixed deposit account or articles kept in Lockers and Safe Custody are handed over to the nominated persons as per your mandate was given at the time of opening of account or even if it is changed by you thereafter.

When I started my blogging journey after my retirement from my banking service in April 2012, I developed a taste for blogging as I found this platform as a good media to share my knowledge with the public in general. I used to make profiles and forget the profile and password as well. This was a big problem to keep track of all your activities on the web through owned profiles. For any online shopping, comments to articles or publishing articles under your own authorship verified by Google. I used to think as to what will happen to my forgotten abandoned profiles. I tried searching on the internet but could not find any satisfactory reply. I used to read Google Help for long hours and on slightest doubt, I used to send my feedback. After learning ways and means to earn money online out and pursuing my hobby for writing and sharing my experience I did not find it difficult to get verified as an established Author subject to fulfilling the following criteria:

• Never hidden my real identity. Proved real identity to Google’s satisfaction through submission of ID, Address Proof and owning each and every word, sentence, paragraph or article created by me anywhere on the web. One can check track of all my activities on the web through my Google+ profile alone.
• Ultimately Google Adsense, keeping in view my clean record, approved me as a publisher for their one of the most popular and premium advertising media for its AdWords customers from across the globe.  I had to pass through stringiest quality control measures for such publishers and Google verified my Mobile Number, Landline Number and exact location of my work through Satellite and Google Maps.
• Finally Web Question Answers Rajpura found a place in Google Maps Business Listings.
• With continued working on the web, I set up Samadhan Kender in 2015 and finally settled for the professional online CIBIL consultancy website at CIBIL Consultants. Now the client base of CIBIL Consultants has risen up to more than 1000 within 3 months time and more and more clients are reaching us to Tell us their CIBIL Problems.

What is the purpose of writing this entire story?

I firmly believe that when you are reading this story, first of all, you need to be convinced that whatever has been communicated above is cent percent truth so that you can afford to continue with the very subject matter of the topic "You have Nominated for your Online Profile and Digital Assets or not" in the same manner as individuals nominate for their Bank Accounts, Insurance Policies, Demat Accounts, Will in case of properties, Provident Fund accounts as lacs of crores of rupees remain lying with Banks, Insurance Companies, EPF organizations, mutual funds, unclaimed dividend and fixed deposit with big corporate entities, due to unavailability of information about legal heirs. In the absence of nominations, I have seen the legal heirs going from pillar to post to claim the amounts belonging to deceased nears and dears and forefathers.

The above scene dates back to an era of manual keeping of accounts by the above organizations and now when the whole transition from manual account keeping to automated accounting system has taken place, the scene has changed altogether. Do you think that the manual records of unclaimed accounts could have been preserved by the organizations when there were no KYC guidelines in vogue? Inactive accounts are similar to unused articles lying dumped in the house and while selling the unused scrap no household will ever like to scan the dumped materials. In countries like India there is an urgent need of Central Regulatory Authority to deal with such unclaimed or inactive accounts and such assets should be treated as National Assets managed by Central Regulatory Authority of India to be named as Unclaimed Assets Regulatory Authority of India, which may invest these assets under framed laws for the authority so as to protect the interests of the claimants. These assets need not be allowed to remain with Banks, Insurance Companies, EPF organizations or corporate as these assets need to be protected against all market risks and may be utilized for national development instead of borrowing by Govt. of India at higher rates of interests.Acting on my feedback the Government of India has set up The Depositor Education and Awareness Fund Scheme, 2014 - under Section 26A of Banking Regulation Act, 1949

What are Digital Assets owned by inactive Online Profiles?

Coming to my online journey for establishing me as an approved GoogleAdsense Publisher and author at many publishing platforms likes HubPages and India’s top educational site like IndiaStudyChannel, the same question came to my mind that what for I am authoring the articles as in the past, when there were no eBooks or online publishing platforms, the authors used to author books and publishers used to publish their work and the royalty from such published works used to be shared by the publishers and authors. In the present online scenario when the publisher and the author is one and the same person, then during lifetime any income out of advertising gets shared amongst host sites and the publisher-cum-authors. If the sites are self-hosted then the whole earnings go to the publisher-cum-authors, who work as affiliates of top advertising media like Google Adsense, Amazon, Linkshare, Adsplay International and other hundreds of advertising networks working globally. To have a regular source of income authors-cum-publishers have to make their online profiles connected to their email accounts like Gmail, Facebook Twitter, Blogger, WordPress and other social networks which distribute the writings of such authors-cum-publishers. Though such networks do not share their income with such online publishers-cum-authors, yet they send traffic to the published work of such authors-cum-publishers and it is at the sole discretion of the author to provide a link to share his or her published knowledge articles on social networks.

Now the basic question in the topic attracted my attention as we often think about death, especially our own. We start making plans, wills, and nominations as it very important for the legal heirs, successors, we may leave behind. We do not worry much about liabilities as the successors inheriting assets is liable to extinguish the liabilities also, no doubt out of the assets inherited. What bothers the individual is the tangible, intangible or digital online assets. I wrote a detailed article about What to do with Inactive Accounts at HubPages - Futuristic Approach and sent the similar Feedback to Google the great in February 2013 to provide the facility of Nomination in their Gmail account settings. On my feedbacks in 2012 and 2013, the great Google has accepting Nominations in all Gmail accounts so as to have access to all Google Products of the Gmail Account holder. Facebook has also activated the facility of Nomination in Facebook Accounts in India also. If you have any questions, you may Ask Such Question at WQA and I will be very happy to respond to your valid questions.

In April 2013 the Google introduced Inactive Account Manager where the user has the option to activate the Inactive Account Manager so as to tell the Google as to what to do with Gmail messages and data related to other Google Products and services on account of inactivity in the account for any reason, whatsoever.

The user has the option to either get the data deleted say after a duration of inactivity in the account or to set up trusted contacts to receive data from some or all of the Google services like Blogger, Gmail, Google+ Profiles, Google+ Pages, and YouTube. It is just like making nominations in Google account settings and if the User had inserted his or her owned content in Contributor Links then the trusted contact will have the access to reactivate the contributions through password resets as passwords will be received in the inactive Gmail account accessible by the trusted contact. Google, before taking action on inactive accounts will send a text message to the verified and registered mobile of the user, whose account has gone inactive due to any reason including hospitalization, death, insanity or any reason whatsoever. What are you thinking now, activate the inactive account manager and set up trusted contacts?

Similarly acting upon my continuous follow-up, the Facebook started the concept of Legacy Accounts in India.

Can Biometric Authentication through Aadhar be Misused?

Lock Your Bio-metrics

"Can Bio-metric Authentication through Aadhar be Misused?" appears to be funny. If you ask me, I will tell U that till now, No two individuals can have same fingerprints or IRIS patterns and that's why many bio-metric systems are designed on the basis of unique IRIS patterns and Fingerprint patterns. But due to ongoing researches and modern technologies, there is every possibility that the IRIS and Fingerprint patterns could be clones and saved for future manipulations. As we already know that scientists have already cloned animals from the bone marrow of the existing animal. Cloned animals can have same iris, fingerprint patterns.

I would have never accepted this doubt or fear but when I visited the UIDAI website of Government of India, it provided the facility to Lock or Unlock the Bio-metrics to secure your Aadhar Authentication as per your need by locking or unlocking your bio-metrics. What does it mean? The common man will infer that during the period one's bio-metrics remain in open status then the same can be or could be manipulated.

The UIDAI started the Aadhar Bio-metric Locking System to lock and temporarily unlock the bio-metrics immediately before going through Aadhaar Based authentication process. UIDAI website further tells the residents that the facility is provided to Protect Privacy and Confidentiality of Residents Bio-metrics Data - which clearly implies that Bio-metric data can be misused or manipulated and it can be harmful as Aadhar authentication has been allowed as e-verification for many financial transactions.

What is the Impact of Locking Bio-metrics:

• The Individuals who lock their bio-metrics may not be able to use the authentication facility in case of dire need and therefore the UIDAI website cautions the Users of Locking System to use this facility with care to prevent denial of Authentication services.
• Locked Bio-metrics ensures the Aadhaar holder will not be able to use their Bio-metrics (fingerprints/iris) for authentications thus preventing potential misuse.

The UIDAI, by writing the words "Potential Misuses" has given a clear-cut signal that Bio-metrics can be manipulated and/or misused.

Moreover to avail the Locking/Unlocking Facility the individuals need to have Registered Mobile Number to avail the service of Locking and Locking. Without having registered Mobile Number, I fear no one will be able to draw the benefits of Aadhaar Based authentication. 

To the best of my knowledge, I have inferred that every Aadhaar Card holder desirous of using the Locking and/or Unlocking facility of bio-metrics must have the internet enabled mobile or smartphone on the go so that in case he or she wants to prove his or her identity through Aadhar based authentication, then he or she can unlock the bio-metrics for proving his or her identity anywhere anytime. Having an internet connection while on the go is a pre-requisite to avail the locking facility so that users can switch to open or locked status. Now it is a million dollars question if the Government of India can provide Free Internet Enabled Mobile Phones to at least those citizens who can not make both ends meet and are living below poverty line.