New Delhi: In a move that would expand usage of Aadhaar and support ease of living, the Aadhaar-issuing body Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is working on a set of new initiatives to help residents use Aadhaar voluntarily to avail multiple services. This initiative leverages three existing Aadhaar components – Offline KYC Verification, Local Face Matching and mAadhaar Application.
Demonstrated at the Global Fintech Fest 2022 in Mumbai, these initiatives are guided by the principles of simplicity in usage for the residents, respecting the privacy of every individual, and empowering residents to share their information voluntarily to transact and avail a host of services of their choice, said UIDAI CEO Saurabh Garg.
Simplicity is achieved by focusing on residents’ experience and allowing residents to voluntarily share their Offline KYC information without any connectivity to UIDAI backend and establish proof of presence using mAadhaar application on their own smartphones.
This ensures privacy, as it does not require the sharing of the resident’s Aadhaar number. Moreover, proof of presence can be established through local face matching on the residents’ smartphone. In addition, a resident has control of sharing only the self-selected KYC fields with the service provider and business application in a secure manner.
Voluntary use of Offline KYC with two factor authentication can help residents in availing multiple services at a time services across sectors and sub sectors. UIDAI through Aadhaar, which is a platform for enabling good governance and ease of living, is continuously working to empower residents, the Ministry of Electronics & IT said on Wednesday.
These proposed features are proof concepts, and would undergo a thorough consultation with all the stakeholders including the public and experts. These initiatives will be finalised after due consultation and following required rules and protocols.
Once finalised, these will allow residents to harness their own information voluntarily to avail services. The new initiatives will further expand use of offline authentication and shall support residents in getting services of choice via voluntary usage of Aadhaar after they are implemented.
