“Why is the picture on my Aadhaar card not recognisable even to my mother?”

This question had Nandan Nilekani, the former chief of the Unique Identification Authority of India, stumped at the 44th World Congress of the International Advertising Association of India, which got under way here on Wednesday, where he spoke on the theme ‘Aadhaar Leapfrog.’

But he was quick to respond as he recommended a change of photograph as the best solution.

“The biggest request I get, especially from women, is ‘whether I can change my photograph on Aadhaar’. When we started 10 years ago, the resolution of cameras was not as good as today plus those photographs were not taken in studios but in all kinds of ambient conditions,” Mr. Nilekani said.

He discounted the possibility of misuse of Aadhaar on permitting private companies to use it for verification stating that by the law, private companies are not allowed to store the Aadhaar number.

A lot of effort has gone into the designing of Aadhaar to safeguard data, especially biometric data, which is very sensitive. It is not used for any purpose other than authentication while the actual data are kept safe.

New paradigm

Mr. Nilekani said the Aadhaar system had helped create a new paradigm of data. He said that unlike the American, European and Chinese models of data, the Indian model looks at how to use data to empower people.

“The thesis is that in the West the people were financially rich by the time Internet and computers arrived on the scene and, therefore, the business model that emerged was attuned to utilise it. Unlike in the West people in India are data rich before they turn economically well-off. In such a society the business model to be emerged will be fundamentally different, enabling people to use that data to get better services. The business model in India puts the user at the centre of his own data because of the unique identity,” he said.