New Delhi: Providing a unique identity
number to every Indian resident was the "first stage" in the
creation of a Citizenship Registry, UID Authority Chairman
Nandan Nilekani said on Wednesday but called for enactment of privacy laws to ensure security of data.
Calling the process of issuing the identification
number to 1.2 billion people as "massively complex," Nilekani
told Members of Parliament here that the UID would be the
"game changer" that would pave the way for financial inclusion
of the poor and the marginalised sections of society.
"UID is the first stage," he said to a query from an
MP on converting the project into a Citizenship Registry
exercise.
"Once the national database with unique numbers for
every resident is created, then we can think of other aspects
of how to use this UID," he said.
"India lacks privacy laws and already our privacy is
compromised in many ways. It is high time the Parliament
considers a privacy legislation to ensure security of data,"
Nilekani added.
Delivering a lecture on 'The Unique Identification
Project - Issues and Challenges' at the Bureau of
Parliamentary Studies and Training, he said the UID would
ensure even those who were "ghosts" with no documents to prove
they existed would bag the benefits that the state wanted to
provide them.
"Enroll only once and get an identity for life," he
said.
Noting that the UID Authority was working towards "an
aggressive schedule", Nilekani said the first UID number would
be issued by February 2011.
He said among the challenges the UID Authority
faced was to ensure there were "no duplicates" in the data
base, a malady faced by all national databases be it ration
cards, PAN cards, voter identity cards and the rest.
The other would be to enroll all those, who could not
provide any proof of their identity. "For getting a document
to prove your identity, you need some other documents. Thus,
the person, without even a single document, goes in circular
loops to get the identity," Nilekani said.
"The UID project would enroll even those who are out
of that loop and be a gateway to open up public service to the
people, who have no identity yet," he added.
Nilekani said UID would be voluntary and not mandatory
till the time a majority of the residents were issued a unique
number and the UID would be used only for verification
purposes and not entail the holder to any benefits.
On the enrolment process, he said the UIDAI was tying
up with public service provides such as banks, oil companies,
PDS shops and such centres.
These public service providers would process the UID
enrolment by providing a bare minimum data of those they serve
such as their names, date of birth and residential address.
"We have already tied up with the Rural Development
Ministry to enroll NREGA beneficiaries for UID and to get them
to open bank accounts for the government to directly deposit
their benefits into," he added.
The UIDAI chief said the identification system would
provide for online verification, which "no other country has
done before."
The project, he said, did face technological challenges
such as adopting biometric verification procedures like finger
prints and iris records and to ensure they were foolproof, as
"rejection" of these records did happen.
However, he said, UID would have no privacy issues, as
there would be no invasion of privacy, but only verification
that person holding the unique number.
The UID project, he said, would cover infants and
school kids too, but their authentication would be done by
their mothers or guardians.
To a query on non-resident Indians being covered
under the project, he said the UID Authority was "grappling"
with such issues too.
Nilekani said once the UID numbers were issued, it
would enable effective implementation of several flagship
welfare projects of the government by reducing fraud and
ensure security.
He said since the nation would undertake a massive
census exercise next year, the UID Authority intended to rope
in the Registrar General of India (RGI) too in the project.
The Authority, he said, was also working on a
volunteer or a sabbatical policy for government employees and
non-government organisations to work in the project.
Nilekani said from January next year, the "pilots and
plans of concepts" would begin, adding the Authority would set
up eight regional centres in different parts of the country
and a technical centre at Bangalore.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, December 16, 2009, 23:04