In order to prevent misuse of individuals’ data and discourage offline verification practices, the Unique Identification Authority of India is mulling issuing an Aadhaar card with the holder’s photo and a QR code.
Discouraging Offline Verification
But doing this is now in contravention of the present law, said a top official on Tuesday.
It seems that the authority is considering introducing a new rule in December to discourage offline verification by entities such as hotels, event organisers, etc, and enhance the age verification process using Aadhaar while maintaining the privacy of individuals, said UIDAI CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar, during an open online conference on a new app for Aadhaar.
Further adding,”There is a thought process as to why there should be any detail on the card. It should be only a photo and a QR code. If we keep printing, then people will keep accepting what is printed. People who know how to misuse it will keep misusing it.”
When it comes to the Aadhaar Act, it prohibits the collection, use, or storage of an Aadhaar number or biometric information of any individual for any purpose in case of offline verification.
Contrary to this, now several entities continue to collect and store photocopies of the Aadhaar card.
The legislation is in the works to discourage offline verification by using an Aadhaar card copy, which will be taken up for consideration by the Aadhaar authority on December 1, said Kumar.
He further noted, “Aadhaar should never be used as a document. It should only be authenticated with the Aadhaar number or verified using QR code. Otherwise, it can be a fake document.”
In this regard, the UIDAI held a joint meeting with several stakeholders which included banks, hotels, fintech firms etc.
Moving ahead, they updated them on the new app in the works which is expected to be rolled out soon.
Fine Tuning Aadhaar Authentication Service
With the launch of this new app, they are expecting to fine tune Aadhaar authentication service and make it in line with Digital Personal Data Protection Act which will be completely operational in 18 months.
This app will be helpful in enabling users to update their address proof documents on the new app.
They can also add other family members on the same app who don’t own any mobile phone.
Besides this, the new app will also enable updating of mobile number of Aadhaar holders within the family using face authentication feature in the app as per An UIDAI official.
In addition to this, the new app will replace the mAadhaar app, and it will ease the authentication process for the various entities that need to verify an individual for various purposes, Kumar added.
This new app will mostly work like Aadhaar verification which is done by the Digiyatra app.
With the help of this authentication service, it can generate various use cases and entities can give feedback to UIDAI on new use cases of Aadhaar authentication services.
The new app will help in the verification of individuals in several cases, including entry into events, cinema halls, buying certain products where the minimum age requirement is 18 years, as well as student verifications, check-in at hotels, entry into residential societies, etc as explained by another UIDAI official.
In order to further update the systems of offline verification seeking entities (OVSE), the official authority has published details online.
