Birth to death, Aadhaar Card to soon cover entire life, says report; check what's coming

UIDAI plans to expand the Aadhaar Card’s ambit to cover a person’s life from birth to death. Here’s how it will benefit you.

Aadhaar Card will soon be allotted to a newborn child. (Mint_Print)

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the world's largest biometric identity database has enrolled nearly all the adult population of India since 2010. And now, it is planning to expand the Aadhaar card even more in order to cover the entire lifecycle, from a person's birth to death, an Economic Times report revealed. Yes, that hints at Aadhaar card for infants coming. Soon, an Aadhaar card for newborns will be rolled out. However, they will receive a temporary Aadhaar number that will be renewed with biometric data once they attain majority, a top official confirmed. This comes as UIDAI is preparing to launch two new pilot programmes aiming at widening its reach countrywide and plugging the misuse.

The programme also plans to integrate the data with death registration records to control the misuse of government benefits by those using the Aadhaar card of a deceased person. The report quoted an official, who mentioned that this expansion of the Aadhaar card's ambit will ensure that children and families get full benefits from the government programmes and no one is left out of the social security net.

A senior official mentioned, “Biometrics for kids are taken when they are at least five years old. Our teams can visit these newborns' families after that period and complete the formalities of registering their biometric, and allocating them a permanent Aadhaar number.” And later, when the child turns 18, these biometrics will be re-registered.

To cross-verify the data and avoid duplication, UIDAI also plans to reach out to public and private hospitals for data on the deceased. This comes as the rise in the death rate due to the Covid pandemic has led to the leak of government benefit transfers to the Aadhaar numbers of deceased citizens. Additionally, to curb the cases of fake allocation of multiple Aadhaar numbers to a single person, UIDAI is coming up with a new idea of "Zero Aadhaar" number, which is given to a person who does not have other proof of birth, residence, birth certification, or income tax return receipts.