INSIDE STATE RESIDENT DATA REPOSITORY

On Feb 22 this year, Rakesh Dwivedi, counsel for the state of Gujarat, told the Supreme Court that Gujarat had erased biometric data of residents stored in its State Resident Data Hub (SRDH). So, what are SRDHS, and how do they have access to the personal

Enrolment

A resident’s demographic (name, address, date of birth) and biometric (fingerprints and photograph) data is captured, stored as an encrypted data packet and forwarded to the state registrar. The Resident is issued an Enrolment Identity number (EID).

State Registrar

Every state has a nodal office for enrolment called the registrar. This office has its own encryption key, meaning it can de-crypt and access enrolment data. The registrar routes enrolment data packets to the UIDAI, and just the demographic data, seeded with EID numbers, to the SRDH.

UIDAI

Decrypts enrolment packet, checks for duplicate entries, and issues a corresponding Aadhaar number, or UID, to the user. The UIDAI shares the UID corresponding to each EID with the SRDH.

SRDH

is an Aadhaar-seeded repository of information consolidated from multiple government databases. The SRDH uses an individual’s Aadhaar number as a unqiue identifier to inter-link these scattered databases. The SRDH is also linked to the UIDAI servers to allow for Aadhaar-enabled biometric authentication.

Government Databases

Prior to the SRDH, each department maintained separate lists of citizens accessing their schemes and services. The SRDH merges these databases. It’s “scalable’ structure means that states can integrate as many databases as they like. In Gujarat, state administrators also added a biometric database in the system.