UIDAI: Database has minimal info on Aadhaar card holders

Body will never have info like health records

New Delhi, April 3: The UIDAI on Tuesday said it does not have information about bank accounts, health records, or financial and property details of Aadhaar holders, and “will never have” such details in its database.

The Aadhaar- issuing body said that its database contains only minimum details of the biometric ID holders, including select demographic information.

Seeking to dispel any possible misgivings about UIDAI ever tracking activities of individuals with the data it has, the authority said, “rest assured, UIDAI does not have your information about bank accounts, shares, mutual funds, financial and property details, health records, family, caste, religion and education etc and will never have this information in its database”.

In a public outreach, the Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI) issued detailed FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions in national dailies, where it addressed about a dozen queries pertaining to concerns over data safety, profiling,

and Aadhaar’s link with bank accounts and mobile numbers.

Citing the Aadhaar Act, UIDAI said that its provisions specifically prohibit it from controlling, collecting, keeping or maintaining any information about the purpose of authentication either on its own or through any entity.

“Aadhaar is an identifier, not a profiling tool,” it reiterated. The move comes at a time when the

Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar Act and the use of biometric identifier in various government and non- government services.

UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey last month made a presentation in the SC to defend the government’s ambitious Aadhaar scheme. UIDAI further said it uses “advanced security”.