Aadhaar Rules Amended

In News

• Recently, the government has amended Aadhaar regulations. The Aadhaar (Enrolment and Update) Regulations have been updated to reflect the changes. 

What is Aadhaar? 

• A 12-digit unique identity for every Indian individual, including children and infants
• Enables identification for every resident Indian.
• Establishes uniqueness of every individual on the basis of demographic and biometric information.
• It is a voluntary service that every resident can avail irrespective of present documentation.
• Each individual will be given a single unique Aadhaar ID number.
• Aadhaar will provide a universal identity infrastructure which can be used by any identity-based application (like ration card, passport, etc.)

About the new regulations

• Updating the documents
  • As per the regulations earlier, residents who were older than 15 years at the time of enrollment were recommended to update their biometric data every 10 years.
    • The process of updating documents is not mandatory. 
• Ensuring accuracy
  • This process will help in ensuring the accuracy of information in the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR).
• Demographic information 
  • The amendment of the Aadhaar regulation is limited to updating demographic information and does not involve biometric data such as fingerprints. 

Issues with Aadhar

•  Aadhaar act allows cancellation of Aadhaar number for any reason by the government and citizens have no recourse.
• A Centralized database is a concern because once it is compromised everyone is at risk.
• There is no ID or address verification and there is no means of identifying fakes.
• There is no data protection law in place in India.
• Enrollment software hacks allowed foreign nationals to create Aadhaar numbers thus creating a national security risk.
• UIDAI does not have a monitoring mechanism but only an audit mechanism.
• Data goes to third parties vulnerability increases due to that.

Significance of Aadhar

• Eliminate the leakages: Increasing the accuracy of Aadhaar information is likely to help the government eliminate the leakage of benefit transfers from various schemes.  
• Jhan Dhan Yojana: Aadhaar Card is used as the major document of proof when opening a bank account under the Pradhan Mantri Jhan Dhan Yojana in the nation.
• Direct Benefit Transfer: Aadhar Card linked bank accounts will get their set of LPG Subsidy directly accredited in the bank account.
• Monthly Pension and Provident Fund: a person needs to link their Aadhaar Card to their respective pension account and provident fund.
• Passport and Voter ID: Aadhaar Card will relieve you of the lengthy procedure while obtaining Passport.

Source: BS