The Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number that is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of
India. This 12-digit number is unique to every individual and is the most important feature of the Aadhaar card. Besides this the Aadhaar card also acts as a valid identification
card comprising of both the demographic as well as biometric details of an individual. It has been observed that despite being the one of the fastest growing economy in the world in terms of
Gross Domestic Product, still more than half of India's population are poor and barely above the poverty line. This shows that the benefits of development have not trickled down to the poorer
section of the society. There are several reasons why development did not take place as it should have but the most important factor why despite of several attempts made by the government to
uplift the poor there are not much development in their living conditions.
The UIDAI offered many of services in UIDAI Official website like Aadhaar online services, Aadhaar update, Aadhaar Enrollment, Check Aadhaar and Bank Account link status, etc. You can check here in details about services offered by UIDAI Official Website.
The Government every year spends several lakhs to uplift the poor conditions of people however due to the presence of “ghost workers” or workers with fake identities the benefits of the schemes did not reach the targeted section of the society. Thus, the Aadhaar scheme was introduced so that every citizen of India holds an identity which is backed by the government and to eliminate all the fake identities in the process.
What Does the Aadhaar Data Comprise Of?
The Aadhaar acts as an identity card comprising of both the biometric as well as the demographic data of an individual. The Aadhaar also acts as a mandatory KYC document for many government or
government backed services. The details of the data available in an Aadhaar card are:
a) Identity proof: The Aadhaar card acts as an identity proof of an individual. It comprises of information like name, phone number, photograph of the person, date of birth,
father/husband's name and gender. The card can be used anywhere in this country and the data provided in the card are authenticated by UIDAI at the time of enrollment.
b) Demographic data: The Aadhaar card also comprises of the demographic data of an individual. The demographic data includes the details of the person's address. The address is
written both in the local language as well as in English.
c) Biometric data: The biometric data in the Aadhaar card comprises of samples of fingerprints of all the ten fingers and iris
sample. This data is collected at the enrollment center and is saved in the UIDAI software.
These features of the Aadhaar card along with the 12-digit unique number provided by UIDAI makes the Aadhaar card a universal identity card.
Safety of Aadhaar Data
The UIDAI has recently stated that no Aadhaar data is processed or stored anywhere except its own servers and data center. The UIDAI further confirmed that the biometric data can be accessed only by the biometric software provider which is done in a secured environment in UIDAI center. Further, the software providers do not possess the biometric data physically. According to a contract between the UIDAI and the software providers, the software conforms to the security guidelines provided by the government. The data is well secured with strong firewall and intrusion prevention system. Any violation of this contract on the part of the software provider will lead to three years of imprisonment.
In a recent allegation by WikiLeaks against UIDAI that the CIA has already cracked into India's Aadhaar database, the UIDAI stated that no such data has been leaked and all data are kept safe in
UIDAI servers. In fact the hardware which are used are also tested twice to ensure that no data can be leaked.
Write a comment