India has restrictions on its Aadhaar authentication service, facilitating a digital identity verification framework to the biometrics of more than 1.4 billion people, to make companies, including those who offer services, such as e-commerce, travel, travel and health care, the verifies system Have them used to authenticate their customers. The update has discussed the privacy problems, since New Delhi still has to define the crash barriers that would consider preventing the abuse of the biometric IDs of individuals.
On Friday, the Indian IT ministerie entered The Aadhaar authentication for good governance (social well -being, innovation, knowledge) Change rules, 2025 to change the legislation in 2020 as a result of a judgment of the Supreme Court that that limited The access of private entities that are looking for Aadhaar data. The new amendment comes almost two years after the Indian government started his public consultationthe answers that were not announced.
The update is intended to improve “the range and usefulness of Aadhaar authentication” by “using Aadhaar for improving services” and “both government and non-governmental entities to make use of IT -Ministery said In his press statement.
In comparison with their previous version, the changed rules went out of the Subegel that made Aadhaar authentication possible to prevent ‘leaking public funds’. This broadens the scope of the unique ID -based verification of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) of the Indian government and extends the Authentication Service to various public and private sectors. Earlier, Bank and Telecom operators mainly used Aadhaar -Authentication to get new customers on board and to verify their existing consumers.
Aadhaar -Authentication hit 129.93 billion transactions in January, an increase of 109.13 billion in February last year, per The Uidai website. National Informatics Center, National Health Agency, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank were among the top entities that used on Aadhaar-based authentication to verify their users this month.
According to the new rules, entities that Aadhaar authentication want to make possible will be obliged to “apply with the details of the intended requirements, the Ministry concerned or the Department of the Central or the State Government” that “will be investigated by Uidai and Meity [the IT ministry]”That will approve these applications on the basis of Uidai’s recommendation, the government stated.
“The criteria De Meity and Uidai would take into account for evaluating such applications must be made clearer and more transparent to be abused, which is a concern marked by the Supreme Court while he delegates section 57 of the Aadhaar Act,” said Kamesh Shekar, a head start of digital administration at the Tech Policy Thinking Tank, which is based in New Delhi, the dialogue.
Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act 2016, which the Supreme Court laid down in 2018, allowed private entities to use the Aadhaar numbers to determine the identity of individuals. The Indian government changed the Aadhaar Act in 2019 to make voluntary authentication possible on the basis of Aadhaar. However, that amendment has been challenged and is currently awaiting the Supreme Court.
Prasanna’s, a record record at the Supreme Court, who was one of the proponents who had challenged the right to privacy and the Aadhaar Act, said that the change attempts to “re-determine the beaten section 57” .
“The license regime even previously existed under the rules of 2020. But now, with the entrance that is being expanded, concern about the type of regime is reinforced multiple times,” he said Techcrunch.
Sidharth Deb, associated director of public policy at the New Delhi-based consultancy firm The Quantum Hub, said that the expansion of Aadhaar authentication brings the risk of exclusion.
“As soon as you start linking ID documentation or ID instruments for access to digital services, there is always the risk of exclusion,” he said. “We really have to start thinking about how we voluntarily define, so that citizens have as much autonomy as possible to gain access to digital services in a frictionless way.”
Techcrunch has reached the Indian IT ministery about the most important concerns of policy experts and the measures to prevent the abuse of Aadhaar and will update when the ministry responds.