UID misuse may attract severe punishment

The draft bill named the National Identification Authority of India Act, 2010, issued by the authority for public comments, proposes to make the UIDAI a statutory body.

“To address civil society concerns about the possibility of misuse of data and privacy of public, the draft bill will ensure data security and confidentiality of information,” a senior official from the UIDAI told Deccan Herald.

The draft bill proposes strict penalty for offences like disclosing identity information, impersonation, breach of privacy, giving wrong bio-metrics and unauthorised access to data.

The draft law says that if any person “intentionally discloses, transmits, copies or otherwise disseminates any identity information collected in the course of enrolment or authentication to any person not authorised”, he will be punished by imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine which may extend to Rs 10,000.

In the case of a company, the fine may extend to Rs 1 lakh. Any person not authorised by UIDAI caught accessing central identities data repository (databank) will be jailed for a term which may extend to three years and will have to pay a fine which shall not be less than Rs 1 crore.

Information disclosure

However, the disclosure of information, including identity information or details of authentication, can be made pursuant to an order of a competent court. Even the disclosure of information can be made in the interest of the country’s security, especially for investigation purpose, with the direction of  an officer not below the rank of joint secretary or equivalent in the Government of India after obtaining approval of the minister in charge says the draft bill.

Parliament assent

After getting public comments, the bill will be placed before Parliament in the monsoon session, said the official.

The bill also clarifies that the unique identification number — to be officially called an Aadhar number — will not be used to provide citizenship rights to a holder and will be there to only verify the identity of a person. No information pertaining to a person’s caste, race, religion and creed will be solicited for an Aadhar number.

The first Aadhar is expected to be issued between August 2010 and February 2011, while the authority plans to issue 60 crore unique identification cards over the next four years.