The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Friday deliberated on and decided to work on core areas to provide continued support to people in their daily lives, further enhance data security, and play a stellar role in furthering the cause of good governance.
The five core areas are resident-centricity, expanding the usage of Aadhaar, security, and privacy, continuous technology upgradation, and collaboration with global economies and support them in their aspiration to achieve SDG 16.9 (provide legal identity for all).
These five focus areas were deliberated in a daylong brainstorming session at Gujarat’s Kevadia. UIDAI CEO Saurabh Garg maintained that there is and will always be a continuous focus on how to support residents in improving their ease of living, and better their experience in availing services.
Officials said that the Authority is constantly exploring and adopting ways to expand the use of Aadhaar for both ease of living as well as ease of doing business. Its sandbox environment will allow startups, professionals, and companies to explore and test innovation applications for increasing the use of Aadhaar. From expanding e-KYC adoption to popularising offline verification for better service delivery to residents, UIDAI will strive to expand the use of Aadhaar in multiple ways.
Aadhaar has emerged as a tool for good governance, empowerment, and service delivery. Since the first Aadhaar number was generated in 2010, UIDAI has issued over 1.35 billion Aadhaars and has carried out more than 88 billion authentication transactions so far, indicative of how it is touching residents’ lives. UIDAI has also executed over 710 million Aadhaar updations following requests from residents since 2010.
The UIDAI will be at the forefront of technology up-gradation to further enhance data security and privacy, seamless service delivery, and proactively address new-age cyber security risks, officials said.
It also urged residents who have got their Aadhaar issued 10 years back and have never updated after that in these years, to get their documents updated. Residents can update their Aadhaars by uploading supportive documents, (proof of identity and proof of address) either online through the myAadhaar portal or offline by visiting the nearest Aadhaar center.
