Initially, Aadhaar was linked to welfare schemes to weed out fakes and duplicate beneficiaries from the system
The Supreme Court’s decision to prevent private companies from using Aadhaar authentication has raised concerns to delink Aadhaar from a host of government services such as Passport issuance, Employee Provident Fund, and DigiLocker.
A number of service providers who have sought Aadhaar details of customers to provide services such as to issue a passport, driving licence or voter identity cards are expected to be affected as they will have to undo their efforts, reported The Economic Times.
The list of service providers that would be affected would include banks, telecom operators as well as Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). These services had made Aadhaar mandatory for people transacting in the stock market.
Slideshow — Aadhaar verdict: What the Supreme Court judgment means for you
related news
While the Supreme Court’s ruling strengthens Aadhaar it remains to be seen if people can voluntarily use their Aadhaar as a means of authentications, said AP Singh, who was a part of the founding team of Aadhaar.
"If this is not the case, then in today’s digital world we will move back to the era of manual entries and paper-based systems. And it won’t be surprising if some new technology emerges to fill the void in the future," he said.
Initially, Aadhaar was linked to welfare schemes to weed out fakes and duplicate beneficiaries from the system. Over the past two years, however, the linking of the unique identity number expanded to several other schemes and government services.
Read — Banks, fintech companies stare at higher KYC costs after Aadhaar verdict
In July 2017, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) made its mandatory to link Aadhaar with Provident Fund (PF) accounts and the Universal Account Number (UAN) to streamline payments. Over 50 million people have seeded ther Aadhaar numbers with their PF accounts, an EPFO official told the paper.
Similarly, biometrics-based Aadhaar authentication was used as a proof of identity while applying for a fresh passport or for updating existing ones. More than 13.6 million residents have used Aadhaar for passport services, the report said.
Read — Opinion | Aadhaar judgment puts in safeguards, but critical concerns remain
The Election Commission has also seeded the Aadhaar numbers of nearly 380 million voters with its voter identity list since 2015. The body, however, will resume seeding if it gets a go ahead.
The verdict has also left the future of Modi government ’s ambitious DigiLocker service in hanging . Under DigiLocker, the government provides a digital locker service that enables users to store certain official documents on the cloud by establishing their identity through Aadhaar. The users can upload and share the documents with any registered agency or government department using the DigiLocker.