MHA raises concern over use of Aadhaar as add proof in telecom

The Home Ministry has raised serious objection to a proposal of the Department of Telecom to use the Aadhar card as valid proof of address for mobile subscribers.

The objection was raised over the DoT's move to use UIDAI number as an address proof through online verification system called e-KYC (Know Your Customers) programme.

However, the Home Ministry said even though 'Aadhaar' is strong on ensuring unique identity, its uniqueness of identity is not a necessary condition to ensure authenticity of identity or genuineness of other entries or records of Aadhaar number, Home Ministry officials said.

Besides, the Home Ministry strongly objects to any move to allow the telecom operators to access the Aadhar database.

The Home Ministry has raised concerns over supporting documents submitted by people as proof of identity and proof of address for getting a Aadhaar number.

The DoT is working on proof of concept (e-KYC) to use Aadhaar number for online verification of people seeking mobile connections along with existing process of customer verification.

Aadhaar card can be also issued to foreign nationals staying in the country, which has also been questioned by the Home Ministry as nationals of countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan may attempt to use it to procure Indian identity documents for infiltrating their agents.

The Home Ministry has said that unlike Aadhaar, other acceptable proof of address documents such as passport, driving licence do not have the status of universality and therefore "even higher levels of error in these documents may not translate into comparable volume of security concerns".

It said that Intelligence Bureau is neither aware of back-end systems, e-processing and e-auditing existing in Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues Aadhaar, nor knows how data is transmitted between units of UIDAI and how data are stored.

The Home Ministry has also raised concern on involvement of foreign vendors by UIDAI for storing data and has suggested audit of data security.