UIDAI mulling to issue Aadhaar with photo, QR code to discourage offline verification

New Delhi: The Unique Identification Authority of India is mulling issuing an Aadhaar card with the holder's photo and a QR code to prevent misuse of individuals' data and discourage offline verification practices, which are in contravention of the present law, a top official said on Tuesday.

In an open online conference on a new app for Aadhaar, UIDAI CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar said that the authority is considering introducing a new rule in December to discourage offline verification by entities such as hotels, event organisers, etc, and enhance the age verification process using Aadhaar while maintaining the privacy of individuals.

"There is a thought process as to why there should be any detail on the card. It should be only a photo and a QR code. If we keep printing, then people will keep accepting what is printed. People who know how to misuse it will keep misusing it," Kumar said.

The Aadhaar Act prohibits the collection, use, or storage of an Aadhaar number or biometric information of any individual for any purpose in case of offline verification.

However, several entities continue to collect and store photocopies of the Aadhaar card.

Kumar said that legislation is in work to discourage offline verification by using an Aadhaar card copy, which will be taken up for consideration by the Aadhaar authority on December 1.

"Aadhaar should never be used as a document. It should only be authenticated with the Aadhaar number or verified using QR code. Otherwise, it can be a fake document," Kumar said.

The UIDAI held a joint meeting with several stakeholders including banks, hotels, fintech firms etc to update them on the new app in the works which is expected to be rolled out soon.

The new app is expected to fine tune Aadhaar authentication service in line with Digital Personal Data Protection Act which will be completely operational in 18 months.

The app will enable users to update their address proof documents on the new app and add other family members on the same app who don't own any mobile phone.

An UIDAI official said that the new app will also enable updating of mobile number of Aadhaar holders within the family using face authentication feature in the app.

Kumar said that the new app will replace the mAadhaar app, and it will ease the authentication process for the various entities that need to verify an individual for various purposes.

The new app will work like Aadhaar verification done by the Digiyatra app.

He said that the authentication service can generate various use cases and entities can give feedback to UIDAI on new use cases of Aadhaar authentication services.

Another UIDAI official explained that the new app will help in the verification of individuals in several cases, including entry into events, cinema halls, buying certain products where the minimum age requirement is 18 years, as well as student verifications, check-in at hotels, entry into residential societies, etc.

The official authority has published details online to update systems of offline verification seeking entities (OVSE).

He said that OVSE can use the new system to verify Aadhaar number holders both online and as proof of physical presence.

"Aadhaar holder will show the QR code in the scanner of OVSE. The system will then prompt for face verification. This will also work as proof of the presence of an Aadhaar number holder. We will open an application for OVSE very soon. We will verify details of OVSE, and once approval is done, then OVSE will have to initiate technical integration to access a QR code for updating data from the Aadhaar database," the official said.