Aadhaar card verification:Â The Government of India has recently given an extension of 15 days for public feedback regarding the proposed measure to allow private entities to use Aadhaar verification. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has drafted an initiative to enable private and state organizations to perform Aadhaar authentication.
The deadline for feedback was set for May 5, but has now been postponed by 15 days. The draft MeitY states that organizations outside central and state government bodies can now seek consent for Aadhaar verification in select cases.
The government has announced that requests from such organizations to process Aadhaar authentication must be accompanied by complete details and justification. Such organizations should submit a comprehensive proposal and will be allowed only after proper ground is established.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology says that if the concerned ministry or government department determines that the proposed use of Aadhaar authentication is in the public interest, it will forward the request to the central government.
What did the Supreme Court say?
The proposal should also be sent to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). In 2018, the Supreme Court declared that the proposal was at increased risk of fraud.
The Supreme Court ruled that private organizations cannot perform such verification. However, the Aadhaar number can be used to identify users for state welfare purposes.
It is to be noted that the Finance Ministry had earlier issued a notification allowing 22 companies including Tata, Mahindra, Amazon and Hero to verify the identity of customers using Aadhaar numbers and authenticate other necessary data.
These companies include Godrej Finance, Amazon Pay (India) Pvt Ltd, Aditya Birla Housing Finance, Tata Motors Finance Solutions, IIFL Finance, Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Ltd, Uniorbit Payment Solutions Ltd and SV Creditline Ltd.
