India expands Aadhaar authentication for businesses, raising privacy concerns

MT HANNACH
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India has reduced restrictions on its Aadhaar authentication service, a digital identity verification framework linked to biometrics of more than 1.4 billion people, to allow companies, especially those that offer services such as the E -commerce, travel, hospitality and health care Use the verification system to authenticate authentication to authenticate their customers. The update has raised confidentiality problems because New Delhi has not yet defined the railing he would consider to avoid misuse of the biometric identifiers of individuals.

Friday, the Indian IT ministry presented Aadhaar authentication for good governance (social well-being, innovation, knowledge) amendment rules, 2025 to modify the legislation introduced in 2020 due to a judgment of the Supreme Court according to which limit Access to private entities looking for Aadhaar data. The new amendment comes almost two years after the Indian government started his public consultationThe answers to which has not been disclosed.

The update aims to “improve the scope and usefulness of Aadhaar authentication” by “allowing the use of Aadhaar to improve the provision of services” and “allows government and non -governmental entities Benefit from an AADHAAR authentication service to provide various services in the public interest “,” the IT ministry said in his press statement.

Compared to their previous version, the modified rules have excluded the sub-roof which has enabled Aadhaar authentication to prevent the “flight of public funds”. This widens the extent of the single verification based on the ID provided by the unique identification authority of the Indian government of India (Uidai) and extends the authentication service to various public and private sectors. Previously, banking and telecommunications operators have mainly used Aadhaar authentication to integrate new customers and check their existing consumers.

AADHAAR authentication reached 129.93 billion transactions in January, against 109.13 billion in February of last year, by The Uidai website. National Informatics Center, National Health Agency, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank were among the main entities using Aadhaar-based authentication to check their users this month.

Aadhaar authentication trendImage credits:Uidai

Under the new rules, the entities wishing to allow Aadhaar authentication must “apply with the details of the required requirements, the Ministry or the Department of the Central or the Government of the State” which “will be examined by Uidai and Meity [the IT ministry]”This will approve of these requests according to the recommendation of Uidai,” said the government.

“What criteria that the Meity and Uidai take into consideration to assess such applications must be made lighter and more transparent to eliminate abuses, which is a concern indicated by the Supreme Court while deliberating on article 57 of The Aadhaar law, “said” Kamesh Shekar, a digital governance chief in New Delhi Tech Policy Think Tank dialogue.

Article 57 of the 2016 Aadhaar Act, which the Supreme Court canceled in 2018, allowed private entities to use the number of Aadhaar to establish the identity of individuals. The Indian government has changed the Aadhaar law in 2019 to allow voluntary authentication based on Aadhaar. However, this amendment has been disputed and is currently pending before the Supreme Court.

Prasanna S, a lawyer on the Supreme Court record, who was one of the defenders of the fight against the right to privacy and had challenged the Aadhaar Act, said that the amendment is trying to “redist” ‘Article 57 struck.

“The license regime existed even earlier under the rules of 2020. But now, access being extended, the concern of the type of diet is increased multiplied,” he told Techcrunch.

Sidharth Deb, Associate Director of Public Policies of the New Delhi -based consulting company, The Quantum Hub, said that the expansion of Aadhaar authentication has the risk of exclusion.

“Once you start linking identity documentation or identification instruments for access to digital services, there is always the risk of exclusion,” he said. “We must really start to think about how we define volunteers so that citizens have as much autonomy as possible to be able to access digital services in as much as possible.”

Techcrunch has contacted the Indian Ministry of IT on the main concerns raised by political experts and the measures in place to prevent the improper use of Aadhaar and updates when the ministry responds.

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