(a) whether various Ministries of the Government have raised certain objections
regarding issue of Aadhaar number in the country;
(b) if so, the details of objections raised by Ministries in this regard; and
(c) the steps taken by the Government to address these concerns raised by various
Ministries?
MINISTER OF STATE FOR PLANNING, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AND EARTH SCIENCES (DR. ASHWANI KUMAR)
(a) to (b): There have been some concerns on the aspect of integrity of the data collected
by the UIDAI as well as its security. In order to streamline biometric data collection of the
residents, the Government has decided that in States where UIDAI has made good progress
or where States/UTs Governments have given commitments for Aadhaar enrolments and are
planning to integrate with various service delivery applications, Aadhaar enrolments through
non RGI Registrars will continue. Accordingly, certain States have been specified where
UIDAI will collect data. It has also been decided that the NPR enrolment will continue as
envisaged, but if in the course of enrolment, a person indicates that he/she is already enrolled
for Aadhaar, the biometric data will not be captured by RGI. Instead, the Aadhaar
number/enrolment number will be recorded in NPR and biometric data will be given to the
RGI by UIDAI. It was also decided that in the event of any discrepancy between NPR and
UIDAI database, NPR data will prevail.
(c): A number of processes have been put in place to ensure that the data collected by
UIDAI is not accessed in unauthorized manner. These include the encryption of data at
source, immediately on completion of enrolment; transfer of data to the data centre in
encrypted and zipped format which is tamper proof; putting standard security infrastructure
such as virtual providers, firewalls and intrusion prevention system in place and limiting
physical access to UIDAI infrastructure and data to authorized personnel only. Detailed
guidelines/instructions have also been provided to Registrars/Enrolment Agencies.