The Bill proposes to constitute a statutory authority to be called the National Identification Authority of India and lays down the powers and functions of the Authority, the framework for issuing unique identification numbers (aadhaar numbers), major penalties and other related matters through an Act of Parliament.
The Unique Identification Authority of India has deactivated Aadhaar numbers of over 2.5 crore deceased persons to prevent misuse of the identity document, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
Also, UIDAI will roll out the gigantic scheme in one-and-a-half year's time and would cover 600 million people in five-and-a-half years.
The first set of unique identification numbers will be issued to the citizens within 12-18 months, high-profile IT expert Nandan Nilekani said soon after taking over as the head of the newly-created Unique Identification Database Authority of India (IDAI) on Thursday.
Microsoft, the world's largest software company, is keen to partner India in a project to issue unique identification to each citizen, its chairman Bill Gates said on Friday.
The Unique Identification Database Authority of India has been under the media glare ever since its launch and ever since former Infosys honcho Nandan Nilekani took over the reins as its chairman.
The statement by Nandan Nilekani that the ambitious Unique Identification card will be for all residents of India including non-citizens on Friday triggered a controversy with the Bharatiya Janata Party demanding a statement from the government.
While UIDAI has given a nod for face authentication, banks need to join the process.
According to sources, the task force made a separate presentation on fertiliser, LPG and kerosene, covering issues like existing subsidy regime and the proposed new model.
The award will be presented to Nilekani by Yale University president Richard C Levin at the Yale CEO Leadership Summit of The Chief Executive Leadership Institute.
The UID will be used just for verifying someone's identity. It would be a 'yes', 'no' kind of an exercise. If someone's identity needs to be verified, only then these numbers will come in handy, says the UIDAI boss.
The order also highlights further disparities, citing examples of Denmark and Sweden restricting mail-in voting to those unable to vote in person and rejecting late-arriving ballots regardless of postmark, while many US states have embraced widespread mail-in voting, with some accepting ballots without postmarks or those arriving well after Election Day.
UIDAI would issue unique identification numbers to the residents of the country based on the demographic and biometric data of the individual.
With the first phase of Unique Identification Authority of India aiming to enrol 600 million residents of the country into its database in next four years and its possible use in improving the Public Distribution System, UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani on Friday said the journey will be 'long' and 'tough'.
A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Ministry and UIDAI in the presence of Rural Development Minister C P Joshi and UIDAI chairperson Nandan Nilekani for this.
The UIDAI issued a strong rebuttal to Moody's Investors Service which claimed that the Aadhaar system often results in service denials and the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual labourers, in hot and humid climates is questionable.
In a serious data breach, personally identifiable information of 815 million Indians has been up on the dark web for sale, according to a report by US-based cybersecurity firm Resecurity. Details such as Aadhaar and passport information along with names, phone numbers and addresses are available for sale online, it has said.
LPG alone will save us Rs 8,000 cr a year: M Veerappa Moily.
The UIDAI said that the claims lack substance and are baseless.
Kunnal Prem, chief executive officer of the Insurance Information Bureau of India, tells Mayank Jain on what they're doing.
There are about 500,000 fair price shops in states and UTs combined.
It is now looking at a solution from the Unique Identification Authority of India for ensuring accurate identification of the beneficiaries of its low-cost services.
Nandan Nilekani will have the responsibility to lay down plans and policies to implement the Unique Identity card scheme and shall own and operate the UID database. The authority was notified on January 28 this year as an attached office under the aegis of the Planning Commission with an initial core team of 115 officials and staff. The scheme will be implemented in three years.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
It is voluntary to link Aadhaar with a voter ID and consent is obtained from the elector for Aadhaar authentication in Form 6B which was recently introduced, he said.
It's one tender that could usher in an era of partnership between domestic and global IT service providers, who compete fiercely for deals in India and abroad.
Nandan M Nilekani, who was appointed as head of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI), on Monday said the government would take steps to end ID card duplication leading to fraud and create a network of verification and authentication.
'The government's proposal to store citizens' data including Aadhaar data under its Digital India initiative on cloud is violative of the citizens' human rights because the cloud is admittedly beyond India's jurisdiction.'
The Bill neither plans to make the Aadhar mandatory or limit its issuance to citizens.
The need of the hour, as the Supreme Court readies to rule on the constitutionality of Aadhaar, is for the UIDAI to fix the bugs, says Geetanjali Krishna, in the second and final part of her series.
Aadhaar is falling behind on technology, missing out on confidentiality and has gaps in its data archiving policy and preserving confidentiality in delivery of the cards to people, says a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). The performance report, 'Functioning Of Unique Identification Authority Of India', tabled in Parliament on the last day of the budget session notes, assigning a unique identity to all resident Indians was supposed to be the key feature of Aadhaar. But "There were instances of issue of Aadhaar with the same biometric data to different residents indicating flaws in the de-duplication process and issue of Aadhaar on faulty biometrics and documents". It says close to half a million such records had to be cancelled by the Unique Identification Authority of India up to 2016.
Aadhaar, an ambitious initiative of the previous government, has been used to initiate mandatory attendance for government officials, prisoner identification and by linking it to passports, mobile SIM cards and provident fund accounts.
There are unprecedented political implications of identification based on 'biological attributes of an individual', such as employed by Aadhaar, warns Gopal Krishna.
The UID number should have age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body, colour, horn type, tail switch and special marks details of the animal, the Centre said.
Data privacy, he said, is a broader argument beyond Aadhaar as it includes everything such as issues related to mobile phones and social media data.
The link requires a person to punch in his PAN number, Aadhaar number and the exact name as given in the Aadhaar card.
In emails to the UIDAI, they have also asked for details about the organisations with whom their Aadhaar numbers had been shared.
Earlier, the Home Ministry had raised concerns over the use of Aadhaar number as a single source of identity verification.
The UIDAI said it is "contemplating a legal action" against ZDNet, on the issue.
The apex court asked the counsel for the Centre to specify the status of rules which were to be formulated in pursuance of its direction to protect cattle smuggling to Nepal and posted the matter for further hearing after summer vacation from May 10 till July 2.
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