Centre extends deadline for feedback on private entities using Aadhaar verification

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) released a draft of the proposal to allow non-government and state entities to authenticate Aadhaar on April 20. It sought public feedback on the proposed draft till May 5, which has now been pushed to May 20.

As per the proposed amendment, entities other than the central and state government can now seek permission for Aadhaar authentication in certain cases.

All non-government entities which want to use the Aadhaar authentication procedure would have to prepare a proposal detailing the justification for using the process, the ministry had proposed.

If the concerned ministry or government department is convinced that the proposal for which Aadhaar authentication is being sought is in the public interest, it will forward the proposal to the central government, which will forward it to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the IT ministry stated. The proposal had, however, come under criticism from privacy experts and lawyers who said that the proposal would make users more susceptible to fraud.

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In 2018, the Supreme Court had in a judgment held that though Aadhaar numbers could be used to identify the rightful recipients of state welfare, private entities would not be able to conduct such verification.