UID number to be issued on voluntary basis

Efforts on to avoid duplication in allocating unique identity

The citizen who seeks the number should register with the local registrars. Subsequently, it will be allotted to others to ensure every citizen of the country gets the number.
The UIDAI, headed by IT czar Nandan Nilekani, is taking all efforts to avoid duplication in allotting the numbers, sources in the authority told Deccan Herald.
To avoid duplication of numbers, registrars will send the applicants’ data to the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) for de-duplication. The CIDR will perform a search on biometrics for each new enrolment.

If the biometric details of a newly enrolled resident already exist in the database, the applicant’s request for enrolment will be rejected, and the registrar will be informed that the said resident has already been allotted a unique identity number. If the resident’s biometric details do not match any of the existing records, his request to enroll will be accepted before the issue of the unique identity number” sources said.

The UIDAI has set up two committees named “data standards and verification committee” and “biometric committee”. The first will look into issues such as demographic details, which will be collected at the time of enrolment, and the process of verification in order to ensure the correctness of data. The other committee will look into the type and specifications of the bio-metric details of the resident, which will be collected at the time of enrolment so as to ensure uniqueness.

Meanwhile, the UIDAI is planning to rope in volunteers, including NGOs, to ensure that the poor and deprived people get priority under the project. The NGOs will be helping the authority in areas such as technology development, awareness creation and enrolment.
As the unique number can be accessed and verified online from anywhere in the country, the authority will also frame a code of conduct that the volunteers need to follow, which include no conflict of interest, sources said.

Unique move
*Registrars to send data to CIDR to avoid number duplication
*CIDR to perform search on biometrics for each new enrolment
*No enrolment if biometric details of resident exist in database
*Data standards panel to examine demographic details
*UIDAI to rope in volunteers to ensure that the poor get priority