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.
- 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.
- 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.
Data/ Facts
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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.
Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) & Aadhar
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Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR)
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Source: BS
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