19.5.10

UID snippets

All 10 fingerprints, an iris scan and a photograph of the person will be used for unique identification (UID) of individuals, the cabinet committee on UID decided on Tuesday, giving its in-principle clearance to guidelines for setting up the UID database. With a billion-plus population, a mix of biometric and photographic record is considered necessary to ensure fidelity of the information collected. With the UID intended to help identify beneficiaries of welfare schemes, children between the ages of 5 and 15 will be included in view of the ambitious right to education law. UID chairman Nandan Nilekani said the cabinet approval followed a presentation on the project. In keeping with the government’s efforts to improve services like PDS and MNREGA, the priority will be the poor and children eligible under the Right to Education Act. Admitting that the technological challenge of building such a database was not inconsiderable, Nilekani said the process would be wholly voluntary. He, however, did not think that the UID being nonmandatory would dilute its purpose as nine states have agreed to use the data to improve delivery of social welfare schemes. The cabinet approval means that the UID rollout will actually get underway, with Nilekani saying that the government was aiming at 600 million users by 2014. He said the numbers would help facilitate “no frills’’ bank accounts for the poor who receive payments through schemes like the MNREGA and the proposed National Food Security Act. They will also help check the disbursal of benefits like old age pensions. The IDs issued under the scheme will be 12-digit numbers and they will be verified by authentication machines that can read fingerprints and send the information to a central database. The principle is not unlike credit card readers and Nilekani said the UID would use mobile networks to send the information to and fro. A draft UID bill to give the authority statutory powers and form has been readied and is expected to be cleared by the cabinet in a few weeks, which could mean that it will be brought to Parliament in the monsoon session. A wellconsidered legislative framework is also needed in view of the privacy and legal issues raised by some sections of civil society.

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