The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was established under the provisions of the Aadhaar Act, 2016. Aadhaar is a system for the targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services. Prior to its establishment as a statutory authority, UIDAI was attached to the Planning Commission. After the revision of the Allocation of Business Rules, UIDAI was made part of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) which was under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

The main objective of UIDAI was to provide the citizens of India with unique identification numbers so that they could easily access financial and other subsidies and benefits provided with the government, this unique identification is called Aadhaar. Aadhaar was designed to provide a robust system that can eliminate any duplicate or fake identities through a cost-effective system to easily authenticate a person’s identity.

What is Aadhaar?

The Aadhaar was launched to provide a robust system for the rollout of Government welfare schemes and programmes. Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identifier that is robust enough to eliminate duplication and fake identities and is easily and cost-effectively verifiable online. Aadhaar is a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion, public sector delivery reforms, managing fiscal budgets, increase convenience and promote hassle-free people-centric governance.

Demographic Information Present in Aadhaar

Aadhaar is an unbiased system that does not profile individuals based on caste, religion, income, health, and geography, but it does collect some demographic information like:

  • Name
  • Date of Birth (verified) or Age (declared),
  • Gender,
  • Address,
  • Mobile Number (optional) and
  • Email ID (optional),

For Introducer-based enrolment:

  • Introducer name
  • Introducer’s Aadhaar number,

For Head of Family-based enrolment:

  • Name of Head of Family,
  • Relationship
  • Head of Family’s Aadhaar number;

For enrolment of a child:

  • Enrolment ID or Aadhaar number of any one parent,
  • Proof of Relationship (PoR) document

Features of Aadhaar

Singularity

No duplication of Aadhaar is ensured through the process of demographic and biometric de-duplication. The de-duplication takes place by comparing the demographic and biometric information a person provides during enrollment with the data present on the UIDAI database.

Portability

Indians tend to migrate from one part of the country to other parts quite often in search of jobs. The Aadhaar is designed to be highly portable as it can be easily verified online.

Inclusion

Aadhaar was started with the objective of developing a more inclusive economic system. Aadhaar can be issued as the first form of identity for individuals that do not have a physical identity card or proof of identity.

Bank Transfers

The UID enabled authentication system allows banks to use this technology to remit transfers between users in a secure and fast manner. The UID system also reduces the overall cost of processing as it is controlled by a central database.