But Aadhaar can’t ensure 100% authentication

The Unique Identification Authority of India CEO has told the Supreme Court that Aadhaar-based verification cannot always ensure successful biometric authentication. "Every problem can't be solved by Aadhaar," the CEO acknowledged. He also admitted that currently there is no institutional mechanism in place to deal with cases where a citizen's biometrics do not match with those linked to his/her Aadhaar identity.

The UIDAI CEO’s comment was in the context of allegations that services have been denied to citizens in cases where their biometrics have failed to match their Aadhaar details.

Biometrics may not match due to a number of factors such as problems with internet connections and malfunctioning devices; so, Aadhaar-based verification should not be relied upon absolutely to authenticate a citizen's identity, the Supreme Court was told.

The five judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which allowed the UIDAI CEO to make a powerpoint presentation, however, pointed out that unaware and illiterate persons can "be left high and dry" as, over time, the finger prints fade. They were also concerned about frequent reports of people being denied services because the Aadhaar programme wasn't able to authenticate their identity. Like a ration shop in Jharkhand turning back a woman who later died on grounds that her authentication had failed. "But the ration was shown to have been delivered to that lady. How do you deal with such a situation," Justice AK Sikri, one of the five judges on the bench, asked.

Pandey said they did probe this case. "We found that in the same village, the shop keeper not only denied food grains to the lady but to a few others also, saying biometrics didn't match. But it matched," he said

Pandey also told the Supreme Court that the UIDAI has repeatedly asked government ministries not to deny services in cases where a citizen's biometrics do not match and to set up an institutional mechanism to deal with such scenarios.