Indians Support Aadhaar Linking But Privacy Still a Big Concern

Slowly and steadily it made a prominent place in our lives. Yes! Here, we are talking about no one other than  Aadhaar Card-a mandatory piece of document that has been criticized and appraised at the same time. An identity proof soon to get mandatory everywhere in India. The process started with Direct benefit transfers, Aadhaar – PAN linking, followed by income tax returns, now bank accounts and by February all the mobile numbers.

How Aadhaar Would Play a Key Role

A recent study published by NITI Aayog (an organization that aims towards reforming India), confirmed that the cost of digital transactions would be almost reduced to zero if the payments were made through this document. Right now, the transaction cost on payments made through the credit card stands at 3.5 percent while the debit card attracts charges of 1.25-1.50 percent transaction charges.

Citizens realising the benefits of linking Aadhaar card?

Apart from serving as a standalone document for identity,

• This document will enable customers to build a credit history and will help under-served to get the loans.
• Linking the document with the PAN card, the income tax payers can have a sigh of relief.
• With this card, the customers can verify your income tax return,
• Beat the passport blues,
• Open the bank accounts in a flash of the second,
• Get pension money on a timely basis,
• Avail provident fund easily do , and a lot more.

It is believed that this mandatory document can undoubtedly cause grief to those who cannot legitimately provide details about the source of funds.

79% people support Aadhaar mobile linking & 90% have linked their bank accounts with #Aadhaar– survey by @LocalCircles pic.twitter.com/fq9NBgU7I7

— Saurabh Kumar IRS (@SaurabhKumar1) September 29, 2017

From this data, it is clear that 79% of the people are supporting Aadhaar card linking with mobile number and 90% have linked the bank with Aadhaar card. Right now, it has become a more important document than Pan Card and around 88% of Indians have registered for this controversial bio-metric identity.  This move will definitely bolster Indian economy and prevent money laundering.

Issues with Aadhaar Card

Some people call it as a bulldozing act of the government because the document suffers from the privacy issues.  A study published by the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore based organization published that over 130 million Aadhaar card holders data has been leaked from the government website. Not only the personal details have been leaked, but their bank account numbers have also been. It’s an extremely irresponsible act by the UIDAI. To counter-react this issue the government has launched a procedure to lock the biometrics data, which preserves privacy and confidentiality of the data.