Aadhaar Update: UIDAI shares new guidelines concerning Aadhaar verification – Check details

New Delhi: Aadhaar-issuing body Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Monday stated that residents’ informed consent before conducting Aadhaar authentication is a must. Entities are required to seek the approval of residents either on paper or electronically before carrying out Aadhaar authentications.

It its new guidelines for Requesting Entities (REs), the Aadhaar-issuing body has asked the Requesting Entities, which carry out online authentications, to ensure that residents understand the type of data being collected and the purpose of Aadhaar authentications.

It has further underlined that logs of authentication transactions including the consent taken are kept only for the period as prescribed in the Aadhaar Regulations. Purging of such logs after expiry of the said time period is also done as per the Aadhaar Act and its regulations.

Worth noting here is that REs generally should not store Aadhaar either in physical or electronic form without masking or redacting the first 8 digits of the Aadhaar number. UIDAI has guided REs to store an Aadhaar number only if it is authorised to do so.

What do REs do?

Requesting Entities offer Aadhaar authentication services to residents and are responsible for submitting the Aadhaar number and demographic/biometric OTP information to the Central Identities Data Repository for the purpose of authentication. UIDAI, in its release, has underscored that REs should be courteous to residents and assure them about the security and confidentiality of the Aadhaar numbers.

The Authority has also urged REs to immediately report to the UIDAI about any suspicious activity around authentications like suspected impersonation by residents, or any compromise or fraud by any authentication operator.

Aadhaar Update

Earlier this month, the UIDAI had enabled a resident friendly facility for the ease of residents who wish to update their address in Aadhaar online. Now, Aadhaar holders can update their address online with the consent of the Head of Family (HoF). This would be of great help to the relative(s) of a resident–like children, spouse, parents etc. who don’t have supporting documents in their own name to update address in their Aadhaar.