4.5.18

Aadhaar Doesn’t Pose Any Privacy Risks: Bill Gates

India's Aadhaar technology does not pose any privacy issue and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the World Bank to take this approach to other countries as it is worth emulating, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said.

The 62-year- old multi-billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist said Nandan Nilekani, Infosys founder who is considered as the chief architect of Aadhaar, was consulting and helping the World Bank on the project.

Asked if India's Aadhaar technology is worth emulating by other countries, he replied, “Yes”.

“The benefits of that (basic ID — Aadhaar) are very high,” he told PTI. More than a billion people in India have enrolled in Aadhaar, the world's largest biometric ID system.

“Yes, countries should adopt that approach because the quality of governance has a lot to do with how quickly countries are able to grow their economy and empower people,” Gates said in response to a question. “We have funded the World Bank to take this Aadhaar approach to other countries,” he said.

It is believed that several countries, including some from India's neighbourhood, have approached New Delhi for assistance in this matter.

“Aadhaar in itself doesn't pose any privacy issue because it's just a bio ID verification scheme,” Gates, the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said when asked about the concerns about privacy issues raised by certain quarters in India.

“The individual applications that use Aadhaar, you have to look and see what's been stored and who has access to that information. And so, application by application, you have to make sure that's well managed. In the case of the financial bank account I think it's handled very well,” he said.

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