The Supreme Court has dismissed a batch of pleas seeking review of its 2018 verdict upholding the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but striking down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.
In a notification, the Union Home Ministry said an eligible beneficiary desirous of receiving the benefit under the 'Central Scheme for Assistance to Civilian Victims/Family of Victims of Terrorist/Communal/LWE Violence and Cross Border Firing and Mine/IED Blasts on Indian Territory' is required to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication.
The ministry of labour & employment has now been mandated to seek the 12-digit unique identification number Aadhaar from people like employees and unorganised sector workers seeking registration, benefits, availing services or receiving any payment under various schemes under the Social Security Code 2020. Aadhaar would not be made mandatory for delivery of services under various social security schemes under the purview of the ministry because Social Security Code 2020 has not been fully implemented so far. The rules under the Code are finalised by the ministry but those rules are yet to be notified.
The amended bill also provides for a stiff Rs 1 crore penalty and a jail term for private entities for storing Aadhaar data.
'If your data is hacked you cannot go to court. Only UIDAI can go to court.' 'UIDAI is lying that Aadhaar is completely secure.'
'First sold to us as a voluntary scheme for government subsidies, Aadhaar has since sprouted multiple heads and tails, horns, fangs, warts, and a nasty case of halitosis.' 'It is unacceptably intrusive, our data is hilariously unsafe, and fraud, corruption, and criminality is rampant,' says Mitali Saran.
It is just a question of providing an additional facility to the taxpayer that if he is not quoting PAN and only has Aadhaar, his filing and processes do not get affected, said CBDT chief.
In order for somebody to do Big Brother kind of a job, one has to collect lots of data. Aadhaar collects very minimal data whether at the time of enrollment or at the time of authentication.
'Your phone number, your birth of date, your parent's name, your address, your photographs, I have everything with me.'
Don't share information over phone with anyone. Use only official apps. Keep Aadhaar locked unless needed.
'The striking down of the use of Aadhaar by private companies implicitly calls for the deletion or erasure of all personal data vested in the servers of the private service providers.'
UPI topped Rs 24 trillion in value of transactions and 19 billion in volume for the first time after becoming operational in April 2016.
The persistence with Aadhaar, to the exclusion of all other identity systems, is a dangerous path and should be avoided if the risks of digital vulnerability are to be eliminated. Till such time that the ownership of the Aadhaar system is transferred to an independent body, concerns over Aadhaar's digital vulnerability will persist, says A K Bhattacharya.
Surat resident Ashfaq Shaikh, a prime suspect, allegedly replaced his colleague Rohit Solanki's photo on the latter's Aadhaar card with his own. He also changed the birth date on the Aadhaar card.
Use of Aadhaar on Skype Lite and LinkedIn will allow Microsoft to bring on board millions in small towns and rural areas lacking e-mail IDs, reports Sheetal Agarwal.
Retirement fund body EPFO added 16.05 lakh net new members in December, which is 9.69 per cent higher compared to November 2024, as per the payroll data released on Tuesday. Further, a labour ministry statement said there was a growth of 2.74 per cent in net payroll additions compared to December 2023.
At the same time, the amendment bill makes it clear that 'no application for inclusion of name in the electoral roll shall be denied and no entries in the electoral roll shall be deleted for inability of an individual to furnish or intimate Aadhaar number due to such sufficient cause as may be prescribed'.
A Mumbai court on Sunday remanded one of the two alleged shooters in the Baba Siddique murder case in police custody till October 21 and ordered a bone ossification test on the other after he claimed he was a minor.
Ramalingam Kalirajan offers some easy steps to reactivate your accounts with banks like SBI, HDFC Bank, IDFC First Bank and PNB just so that you can start availing all the benefits linked to your account.
India's decadal census is likely to be further delayed after the budget allocated only Rs 574.80 crore for the exercise, a significant reduction from previous years. The census, originally scheduled for 2021, has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government has not yet announced a new schedule. The budget allocation suggests that the exercise may not be carried out even after the delay. The upcoming census will be the first digital census, allowing citizens to self-enumerate using a dedicated portal. The exercise will be made compulsory for citizens who wish to self-enumerate, and Aadhaar or mobile numbers will be required. The census will include questions on household demographics, amenities, and economic status.
The Bill neither plans to make the Aadhar mandatory or limit its issuance to citizens.
The Samajwadi Party on Wednesday accused police personnel of deterring some people from casting votes in Uttar Pradesh where bypolls are underway, while the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that the faces of some burqa-clad women voters are not matching with their IDs.
At least four out of the 13 persons killed in the Jalgaon train accident have been identified as hailing from Nepal, authorities said on Thursday.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declared that Aadhaar is constitutionally valid, but at the same time also ruled on who can seek your Aaadhaar details.
The UIDAI said that the claims lack substance and are baseless.
The UIDAI asserted that the Aadhaar letter, its cutaway portion, downloaded versions of Aadhaar on ordinary paper or mAadhaar are "perfectly valid".
Political reactions poured in shortly after the Supreme Court declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising said the review petition has been filed against the September 26 verdict of the five-judge constitution bench which had said there was nothing in the Aadhaar Act that violated right to privacy of an individual.
'This updated NPR database along with Aadhaar Number would become the mother database and can be used by various government departments...' the home ministry declared in July 2015. 'UID/Aadhaar has been used as a fish bait to ensnare and entrap present and future generations of citizens,' warns Gopal Krishna.
First things first: For those wondering if they need to reapply, the answer is no.
Mumbai police have informed a court that they need to conduct facial recognition of the Bangladeshi man arrested for allegedly stabbing Saif Ali Khan to ascertain if he is the person seen in CCTV footage. The accused, Shareeful Islam Shehzad Mohammad Rohilla Amin Fakir, has been remanded in police custody till January 29. The police are also seeking to match Fakir's footprints and recover the missing part of the knife used in the crime. Fakir's lawyers have opposed the police's plea, raising doubts about the credibility of the incident and arguing that the remand of the accused is not required to recover the material.
Aadhaar, says former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani, has followed 'all the design principles laid by the Supreme Court.'
A bill to link electoral rolls with the Aadhaar ecosystem to weed out duplication was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday apologised for the ethnic conflict in the state which claimed over 250 lives and rendered thousands homeless, and appealed to all communities to forget and forgive past mistakes and live together in a peaceful and prosperous state.
The RBI clarification followed media reports quoting a reply to a Right to Information application that suggested the apex bank has not issued any order for mandatory Aadhaar linkage with bank accounts.
The judgment was reserved after a marathon hearing which went on for 38 days spanning four months.
The authority said in response to a report based on RTI that 210 government website made Aadhaar information public .
Over the past few weeks, an anonymous person, claiming to be a French mobile app developer, has been using his Twitter account to flag security concerns in the Aadhaar system. Recently, the account released a video showing a hack into the Aadhaar application (app). The Unique Identification Authority of India has maintained that Aadhaar remains safe and secure. Mayank Jain spoke to Robert Baptiste, the man behind the Twitter account called 'Elliot Alderson', to understand the way forward for citizens to keep their information safe.
"Aadhaar Act has withstood the judicial scrutiny and the purpose of the Act is legitimate," it said.
For the first time in their lives, 186 Pakistani Hindu refugees in Delhi cast their votes in the Delhi Assembly polls, marking a significant moment in their journey towards citizenship. Having received Indian citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, they expressed hope for a better future with permanent homes and stable livelihoods. The refugees, who have lived in makeshift shelters and struggled with daily wage work for decades, felt a sense of belonging and empowerment after exercising their voting right.
