The Government of India and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are reportedly discussing a new method for using ‘offline Aadhaar’ as a KYC (Know your client) document for various purposes. The move will apparently secure Aadhaar as it will mask details beyond the name, photograph and address of a person.
Following the Supreme Court order on Aadhaar, RBI and the government are now said to be looking at the use of QR codes, instead of the biometric eKYC for opening bank accounts, payment wallets, and more, ToI reports.
The SC had ruled out Aadhaar-based verification for private firms but according to report, the move will also benefit those companies. It is also noted that the court’s decision led to a discussion on the use of offline Aadhaar where there is no link to the Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) servers, although the printout with the QR code will still be digitally signed by UIDAI.
In the new case of ‘offline-Aadhaar’ for banks, it needs to be facilitated by the RBI, because it will only issue a circular on this to banks and ensure that the rules are in sync with the SC order. The report suggests that the central bank has already held two-three rounds of discussions with UIDAI’s Aadhaar body.
Recently, the government ordered telecom companies to stop using Aadhaar for electronic verification of existing mobile phone customers as well as for issuing new connections to comply with SC orders. While the use of such a verification system simplified verification of new customers, it also led to scare of large data breach resulting in loss of data of millions and billions of Indians.
