Government withdraws advisory on sharing Aadhaar copy

New Delhi, May 29

In what has triggered a controversy, the government today withdrew an advisory issued by the UIDAI cautioning the people against sharing a photocopy of their Aadhaar with any organisation as it could be misused.

Overruling the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) advisory issued on May 27, the Union Information Technology Ministry said the “earlier press release stood withdrawn in view of the possibility of its misinterpretation”.

The ministry advised the people to exercise normal prudence while using and sharing Aadhaar numbers. “In view of the possibility of the misinterpretation of the press release, the same stands withdrawn with immediate effect,” the ministry said in a statement. The Aadhaar identity authentication ecosystem had provided adequate features for protecting and safeguarding the identity and privacy of users, it said.

The UIDAI’s Bengaluru regional office had issued the advisory and asked users to only share a masked Aadhaar that displayed only the last four digits of the Aadhaar number. The same, it had said, could be downloaded from the UIDAI’s official website.

The Unique Identification Authority of India had also said that only those organisations that had obtained a user licence from it could use the Aadhaar for establishing the identity of a person. “Unlicensed private entities like hotels or film halls are not permitted to collect or keep copies of Aadhaar,” it said, adding that if a private entity demanded to see Aadhaar card or sought a photocopy, its user licence needed to be verified.

The ministry said the “Unique Identification Authority of India’s press note was issued in the context of an attempt to misuse a photoshopped Aadhaar card”.