Monday, January 7, 2019

Supreme Court Banned Aadhar Card

In every country, Government uses some identification system to effectively register its people. Like other, Government of India is also doing the same thing using its Aadhar enrollment system and it gives very high importance to this process. The whole process is done by a Government based entity called UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India).

In India, Government uses 12 digit unique to register its people. This Aadhar number works as a basic point of interaction in all over the country. This is used to verify the details of the applicant. In schools, universities, employment and in financial transactions, Aadhar is the way to go.
In a recent verdict from Supreme Court, it has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhar by invalidating certain provisions of the Aadhar Act. The main objective of doing so is to keep privacy of the people. In past, there have been reports of stealing of people's private information for fraudulent activities.  As a result, the matter was brought into the notice of Supreme Court.

E-commerce companies, mobile companies and e-wallets were found to be selling the people's private information to advertising companies in order to deliver targeted ads. Targeted ads work greatly in making a high conversion rate towards sale. In this regard, Supreme Court banned Aadhar Card for linking with private services. So, it is totally illegal for a private entity to ask Aadhar for conducting the transaction.

In a nutshell, after Supreme Court banned Aadhar card, linking of Aadhar is not mandatory for following services:

·        Insurance policies
·        Bank accounts
·        Employee pension
·        Mutual fund investments
·        Credit Cards
·        Re-verification of mobile number
·        KisanVikasPatra - whether old or new
·        NSC accounts - whether old or new
·        PPF accounts - whether old or new

Train, Rail, Movie Tickets - Often people get confused whether they should give the private firms who are in the business of selling movie tickets, railway and train tickets. The answer is no, these private firms cannot force you to disclose your Aadhar with them. Supreme Court banned Aadhar card for all sort of private firms that are not connected with Government agencies in any way. However, you cannot mix this with banks asking for opening PAN (Permanent bank account). You have to provide your Aadhar card to these banks though they are privately owned.

The Supreme Court verdict is a great shock to the private firms that uses aadhar card download based e-KYC (know your customer) to find new customer. Now, these private firms will have to find out new methods to search for new customers instead of capitalizing on people's private information. So, we can say Supreme Court banned Aadhar Card is definitely stop the spy on people's private information and will increase the data integrity of the people.

On the other hand, it will also increase the cost of acquiring new customers. We are sure, this this cost will be passed on to the final customers. So, a little rise in the prices of these services will be seen in few months ahead.