UIDAI asks telcos to submit Aadhaar delinking process

October 2, 2018 Hot from the Oven Valli Sarvani No comments

UIDAI asks telcos to submit “delink Aadhaar” process

In the last week, the Supreme Court had given verdict that linking of Aadhaar card is not mandatory for phone connections, bank accounts, school admissions and other such things.

Following the verdict of the Apex Court, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) yesterday asked the telecom companies to submit the plan to delink Aadhaar cards within 15 days.

The plan should also have details to stop using the Aadhaar card details for customer authentication. Currently, eKYC route is used by telecoms. With this change, using eKYC won’t be possible.

All major telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea etc. have been issued a circular on this.

As per the circular, all telecom service providers should immediately take action to comply with the judgement of Apex court dated 26.09.2018.

In this context, they are directed to submit the action plan or exit plan to stop the usage of Aadhaar based authentication systems by October 15, 2018.

The Supreme Court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act last week. This Section allowed the private companies to use the 12-digit Aadhaar based eKYC.

After this, private companies like telecom operators will not be able to use this immediate and inexpensive Aadhaar eKYC method.

They have to use to the old paper based method.

That means they will have to use other alternates like paper-based techniques with signature, photographs etc.

Moreover, they have to cross verify the submitted details by calling up the customers. This process normally takes 24 hours to 36 hours.

As per UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Aadhaar regulations have certain requirements. Hence companies should know them and plan accordingly, and submit their action plan within 15 days.

He assures that the additional requirements if any will be told by the UIDAI once they receive the plan from the telecom companies.

Image credit: Image by soumen82hazra from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)