Committee says some changes may be needed in Aadhaar Act

NEW DELHI: The Justice BN Srikrishna committee has stated that regulations suggested in the draft data protection bill will require the government to make changes to the Aadhaar Act.

The report said it would not comment on the merits of an ongoing case in the Supreme Court related to Aadhaar’s implementation. “However, it is salient that the data protection regime proposed by the committee will require close introspection by the government on various aspects pertaining to the existing functioning of the UIDAI,” the report said. The UIDAI or Unique Idcentification Authority of India, is the nodal agency that manages the Aadhaar biometric identification system.

The committee has recommended two changes to the Aadhaar Act. The report states “amendments have been suggested that classify requesting entities into two kinds to regulate access to personal data on the basis of necessity — those who can request for authentication and those who are limited to verifying the identity of individuals offline.” In other words, the committee wants better safeguarding of Aadhaar data.

Secondly, the committee has said amendments are required to ensure the “autonomy of the UIDAI”.

This requires two conceptual changes, it said, to the way in which the Act currently conceives the UIDAI. “…first, the UIDAI must be autonomous in its decision-making, functioning independently of the user agencies, in the government and outside it, that make use of Aadhaar”.

Secondly, the committee said the UIDAI must be equipped with “powers akin to a traditional regulator for enforcement actions”.