UIDAI Urges To Enhance Aadhaar Authentication System

The unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) is, reportedly, pushing the states to move to a robust authentication system inorder to enhance their involvement in the Aadhaar authentication system and also as a part of the government's efforts to reduce the chances of leakages from government schemes. As per reports, the plan is to encourage the states to use the Aadhaar authentication system for various purposes such as de-duplication of beneficiaries and weeding out of ghost beneficiaries.

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A senior government official, in a news report was quoted as saying, "UIDAI, which is responsible for issuing Aadhaar, is also seeking to reduce the need for submitting physical copies of the ID by using authentication devices, which was the original idea. Over the years, almost all the agencies, which include banks and telecom companies, have started demanding photocopies, which Aadhaar users have been forced to give, increasing the risk of identity theft."

The reports stated that, currently, 40 per cent of the authentication is done for Aadhaar-enabled payment services, with another 20 per cent accounted for by public distribution system. As of today, roughly 1000 state and central government-run schemes use Aadhaar for authentication of beneficiaries. Out of these, there are 650 state-run schemes, while around 314 government-run and sponsored projects use the biometric authentication of the Aadhaar ecosystem.

"UIDAI is talking to government agencies to see if they are properly authenticating Aadhaar and discuss how it can be strengthened. Our approach is having two-factor authentication so that the residents can use smartphone and mobile number registered with Aadhaar database for simple transactions and avail government's services," added the official.