Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to introduce myself.

My name's Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC commissioner for a load of sport

podcasts. I'm lucky to do that at the BBC because I get to work with

leading journalists, experienced pundits and the biggest

sports stars. Together we bring you untold stories and fascinating insights

straight from the player's mouths. But the best thing about doing this at the BBC is our unique access to the sporting world.

What that means is that we can bring you podcasts that create a real connection

to dedicated sports fans across the UK.

So if you like this podcast, head over to BBC Sounds where with me Dan Hardoon.

I'm taking you back to 2009 and the story of how more than a billion people were enrolled in the world's largest biometrics project,

attracting plenty of controversy along the way.

Adar, which means foundation in many Indian languages, was an ambitious government scheme to register

all Indian citizens with a unique digital ID.

It gave hundreds of millions of people a form of identification for the first time ever.

I've been speaking to Nandan Nilekany, co-founder of Digital Services Giant Infosys, who masterminded Ardara's creation.

Nobody had actually built anything to give a billion people a unique ID number certainly at the scale that we were intending.

I met many people who said their lives had changed because of Azar.

Without this idea they could not have travelled on trains, got a bank account, got a

mobile connection. But the project also prompted strong opposition from

privacy advocates and civil rights groups who brought a legal case that went all the way to India Supreme Court.

The story starts in 2009 in Bengaluru, India's booming tech hub in the south of the country.

Nandang got an unexpected phone call to his office. I had a nice comfortable corner office overlooking a golf course and quite pleased with myself.

...