Question : Linking of Birth & Death Certificates with Aadhar

(a) whether the Government has any proposal to link birth and death certificates with Aadhaar to maintain real-time databases of citizens;

(b) if so, whether the Government is cognizant of the fact that this will be a violation of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Puttaswamy case, if so, the comments of the Government in this regard;

(c) the justification for linking birth and death certificates with Aadhaar, even in violation of Supreme Court’s judgment;

(d) whether the Government has any poposal to use this data for building NATGRID, if so, the details thereof;

(e) whether the Government has any proposal to use this database for the National Register of Citizens; and

(f) the safeguards that have been put in place to prevent usage of this data for any other purpose?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS
(SHRI NITYANAND RAI)

(a) to (f): Following consultations with the concerned Union Ministries / Departments and all the State Governments / Union Territories, a draft amendment to the Registration of Birth & Death (RBD) Act, 1969 was placed in public domain from 18.10.2021 to 02.12.2021 for comments, which inter alia includes a provision to use the database of births and deaths to update various databases. Till now, the Government has not taken any decision to prepare National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) at the National level.

As per the Section 17 of the RBD Act, 1969, any person may cause a search to be made by the Registrar for any entry in a register of births and deaths and may obtain an extract from such register relating to any birth or death.

*****