IT Minister inaugurates "Aadhaar 2.0"

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CategoryPolity

Last Updated26/11/2021

Recently, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (Meity) inaugurated a 3-day workshop titled ‘Aadhaar 2.0- Ushering the Next Era of Digital Identity and Smart Governance’.
The Workshop aims to analyze the reach of Digital Identity in major reforms and schemes launched by the Government.
It also aims to look into various futuristic aspects of Digital Identity to achieve universal inclusion, both social as well as financial.

The theme of the workshop series ""Aadhaar 2.0 - Ushering the Next Era of Digital Identity and Smart Governance"" is considering Aadhaar as a Trusted ID as a platform and method for delivering innovative digital solutions. It also focuses on strategies of Aadhaar that can strengthen and simplify its service delivery.
Along with it, the workshop also delivers insights of evolvements and transition of digital ID. It is also an opportunity to focus on rebuilding more inclusive systems that allow society as a whole to be more resilient to future shocks, and safety.
The workshop is divided into eight sessions for deliberations on various topics which are elaborated as:-

The key takeaways for this session are changes required in Aadhaar enrolment and updated service delivery to provide a frictionless experience for the residents; improving enrolments on focus areas and how Aadhaar can continue itself as one of the main enablers of identity verification in both on-line as well as offline mode in light of the SWIK rules (Social welfare, Innovation and Knowledge).

The discussion with talks about How to usher in, the next phase of Digital enablement and empowerment for the masses will be driven by the creation and development of applications that move government services closer to people - individuals and other units: Governance with a newly digitized model of identification, accountability and transparency.

The discussion will focus on - what Aadhaar can deliver on e-gov; e-commerce and e-banking and finance in particular.

This session will explore the best way to ensure that all Aadhar ecosystem partners also follow the best security practices. Deliberations on how to deter, detect and prosecute fraud in Aadhaar enrolment and authentication.

Aadhaar as a framework for creating International standards for digital identity, a roadmap for International digital identity standards and across borders interoperability. The session will also talk about ensuring security and privacy, and framework for data sharing amongst countries.

The Legal session would dwell on assessing the existing legal framework with respect to Data Security and Privacy while delivering the Identity services and could also explore the scope for improvement in the policy gap, technological gap if any.

The discussion will be around Smart Phone Usage Trend and Key Developments likely to happen in the Telecom Domain, Biometrics for all - How face authentication can be leveraged through Smartphones? And Use Smart Phone for Finger Print Capture Authentication - Challenges and Way Forward. The discussion focus would be on Voice Authentication, Use FIDO Standards for Aadhaar Usage - Platform for Passwordless authentication for Public Services and Industry View on the adaptation of Aadhaar Technologies and making it available for the public.

Discussions on recent advances in biometrics and their improvement using Artificial Intelligence and esp. deep learning techniques. We will also look at blockchain-based technologies and applications as well as the impact of Aadhaar and these new technologies in the Banking sector.

Aadhaar number is a 12-digit random number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to the residents of India after satisfying the verification process laid down by the Authority.
Any individual, irrespective of age and gender, who is a resident of India, may voluntarily enrol to obtain an Aadhaar number.
Person willing to enrol has to provide minimal demographic and biometric information during the enrolment process which is totally free of cost.
An individual needs to enrol for Aadhaar only once and after de-duplication only one Aadhaar shall be generated, as the uniqueness is achieved through the process of demographic and biometric de-duplication.

Promoting Transparency and Good Governance: Aadhaar number is verifiable in an online, cost-effective way.
It is unique and robust enough to eliminate duplicates and fake identities and thus used as a basis/primary identifier to roll out several Government welfare schemes thereby promoting transparency and good governance.
Helping Bottom of the Pyramid: Aadhaar has given identity to a large number of people who did not have any identity earlier.
It has been used in a range of services and has helped in bringing financial inclusion, broadband and telecom services, direct benefit transfers to the bank account of citizens in a transparent manner.
Neutral: Aadhaar number is devoid of any intelligence and does not profile people based on caste, religion, income, health and geography.
The Aadhaar number is a proof of identity, however, it does not confer any right of citizenship or domicile in respect of an Aadhaar number holder.
People-Centric Governance: Aadhaar is a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion, public sector delivery reforms, managing fiscal budgets, increasing convenience and promoting hassle-free people-centric governance.
Permanent Financial Address: Aadhaar can be used as a permanent Financial Address and facilitates financial inclusion of the underprivileged and weaker sections of the society and is therefore a tool of distributive justice and equality.
Thus, the Aadhaar identity platform is one of the key pillars of ‘Digital India’.