Giving new life to Aadhaar

The imperatives of governance have a tendency to make political parties think differently once they are in power and revisit earlier misgivings. Nothing illustrates this better than the Narendra Modi government’s decision to go ahead with the ‘Aadhaar’ scheme aimed at giving unique identification numbers to residents. The Bharatiya Janata Party had on some occasions in the past voiced its reservations about the viability and desirability of the scheme and questioned the legal basis of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) set up by the previous United Progressive Alliance regime. Many had questioned the lack of statutory basis for the project, voiced concern over the security implications of the possible enrolment of non-citizens, and argued that collecting biometric data without enabling legal provisions violated constitutional rights. However, the Modi regime views the scheme as a possible means to meet its own policy goals. It appears to have come round to the view that having a unique identification number may improve efficiency and targeted delivery of services. The Home Ministry has in a letter to the States come out in support of the Aadhaar scheme, saying it is a sound way of authenticating beneficiaries of government schemes and services.

The NDA government is now targeting universal coverage of the entire country under the Aadhaar project by June 2015. Latest statistics show that as many as 70 crore Aadhaar numbers have been issued, making it the world’s largest biometric database, and that over 50 crore people are yet to be covered. The government will have to reckon with multiple challenges before it can translate its policy goal of using authentic identification as the driving force behind delivery of benefits and services. The scheme is under challenge before the Supreme Court, and by an interim order the government has been restrained from making Aadhaar numbers mandatory for availing any benefit or service. To overcome the judicial challenge, the government needs to put in place a sound legal framework. This requires provisions for digital identity protection and steps to ensure that different kinds of personal, demographic and biometric data are truly disaggregated and do not fall cumulatively in the wrong hands — transnational databases, for instance. Secondly, the physical process of enrolling people with both demographic and biometric data remains cumbersome, and it needs to be made simpler and more accessible. Thirdly, the government must always preserve alternative means of identifying individuals and verifying their addresses so that a particular form of identification does not become restrictive or mandatory.