Aadhaar verdict fallout: Firms, govt brace up for requests to delink data

Private enterprises, as well as various government departments, may be staring at a situation of confusion post the Supreme Court’s verdict on Aadhaar, which has allowed people to request for deletion of their Aadhaar data from the database of companies.

According to experts, companies and government agencies that were heavily relying on Aadhaar for customer verification, may be flooded with requests for deletion in the coming weeks.

“Since the judgement came on Wednesday, there has been a spike in the number of people who have signed the petition to optout of Aadhaar and a form which has been published to delink Aadhaar from existing database has seen a spate of downloads from its website,” said Raghu Godavar, member of the group Rethink Aadhaar.


While companies have been waiting for directions from Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or their respective ministries, the former has said that sectoral regulators have to provide clarity in this regard.

Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of UIDAI told ET that as far as UIDAI is concerned, the authentication log has to be deleted after six months and the authority will delete it.

“This is the part that concerns us. The part that concerns other agencies and regulators has to be looked at by them. And they need to do what is required as per the order,” he said. Few consumers have already expressed questions on social media over the process to delete their Aadhaar information.

Read: Sector regulators must guide companies post SC's Aadhaar verdict: UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey