Why in news?

• According to a report by global rating major Moody's Investors Service, the biometric technology used by India's Aadhaar program is unreliable in hot and humid climates.
• The report also raised concerns about security and privacy vulnerabilities in centralized identification systems.

What’s in today’s article?

• Unique Identification Authority of India
• News Summary

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)

• About
  • The UIDAI is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”).
  • It issues a unique 12-digit identification number to each individual in India.
  • It serves as proof of identity and proof of address for residents of India.
• Nodal Ministry : The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)
• Function
  • UIDAI is responsible for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication.
  • This includes:
    • operation and management of all stages of Aadhaar life cycle,
    • developing the policy, procedure, and system for issuing Aadhaar numbers to individuals
    • perform authentication and the security of identity information and authentication records of individuals.

News Summary: Aadhaar biometrics not reliable in India’s climate

• The concerns come a year after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India had pulled up the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for Aadhaar’s deficient data management.

What Moody’s has said about Aadhaar?

• Aadhar integrates marginalised groups and expands welfare benefits access
  • Moody’s has noted that Aadhaar is the world’s largest digital ID program.
  • It enables access to public and private services, with verification via fingerprint or iris scans, and alternatives like One-Time Pass-codes.
• The system faces hurdles
  • Including the burden of establishing authorisation and concerns about biometric reliability.
  • The system often results in service denials, and the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual labourers in hot, humid climates, is questionable.

Why the reliability concerns are alarming?

• Aadhar is the primary identity document
  • Aadhar is linked to a number of the government’s welfare schemes.
  • So, if the technology is not reliable, it might result in people not receiving various subsidies from the government that they are entitled to.
  • There are documented cases in Jharkhand of starvation deaths linked to Aadhar biometrics failing.
• Widespread use of Aadhar - Statistics
  • As of July 31, 2023, 765.30 million Indians had linked Aadhaar with ration card to avail ration through Public Distribution System(PDS).
  • Over 280 million residents linked Aadhaar with cooking gas connection for LPG subsidy through PAHAL.
  • Over 788 million Aadhaar have been uniquely linked with the Bank Accounts on NPCI Mapper.
  • And almost 100 per cent of farmer-beneficiaries under PM Kisan Yojna are connected via Aadhaar.

Aadhaar’s recurring concerns

• Observations made by CAG
  • Last year, in a report, the CAG said that there are issues of data-matching, errors in authentication, and shortfall in archiving in Aadhaar.
  • It added that the data of Aadhaar card holders have not been matched with their Aadhaar number even after 10 years in some cases.
• Lack of data archiving policy
  • CAG has also criticised the absence of a system to analyse the factors leading to authentication errors.
  • CAG further said that even though UIDAI was maintaining one of the largest biometric databases in the world, it did not have a data archiving policy.
    • Data archiving policy is considered as a vital storage management best practice.
• Deprived revenue to the Government
  • UIDAI provided Authentication services to banks, mobile operators and other agencies free of charge till March 2019.
  • This is contrary to the provisions of their own Regulations and it deprived revenue to the Government.