Get new mobile connections and bank accounts with changes in Aaadhar law
On Monday the government headed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a decision to do minor changes to the existing laws to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar in order to get a mobile connection or to open a bank account. Also, the people can make use of other sort of identity or address proof to avail any of these services. Citing the present situation the Union cabinet has suggested amendments to The Telegraph Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Aadhaar Act . The amendments were suggested considering the convenience of the people who are willing to share the details. This minor changes will again open the gates for e-KYC. E-KYC is nothing but an authentication that requires bio metric info. This facility is said to be provided to those consumers who are free to share their Aadhaar details.
Other than the individuals, the firms that are going to be benefited by this change of laws include Telecom companies, banks and financial Technology firms etc. These forms were mainly included in this amendment change because they were worried about huge paperwork after the Supreme Court passed order that Aadhaar could not be mandatory for services other than direct benefit transfer, social welfare schemes or permanent account number (PAN) issuing by the IT department. There is however no legal backing for the provision in the law. Now the changes proposed by the government also include a provision that gives a child the option to withdraw the Aadhaar details and also also Unique Authority of India (UIDAI) to remove all the details from its servers as soon as the person turns 18. This in turn will ask the UIDAI to delete all the info along with the bio metrics of the person that takes off from the scheme.
Government made it clear that all the mobile connections existings or new will have to link their aadhaar with their mobile connections and will have to authenticate their details after their network connection get activated this was done by the government to reduce the fraud that was happening in the telecom industry and now the government will take several other steps to make telecom companies and mobile connections more secure as now the details of a person or susupect can be traced with its mobile number if needed by the goevrnment otherwise the details of other person will be secured and cannot be used by any other person .
With the changes in Aadhaar laws, individuals can get new mobile and bank accounts
This amendment is mainly being made in the light of ensuring the privacy of Aadhaar information. This changes will mandate the use of Aadhaar under state’s interest. The changes are being made in accordance with the SC order. A close source said the government has also took suggestions from the justice Srikrishna Committee along with the deletion of info or denial of service.
Under this UPA regime every individual of India will be provided with a unique identification number by collecting their bio metric info and photographs. The min intention of introducing Aaadhar card is to reach out to the poor crowds and offer than appropriate subsidies by getting rid of untrustworthy beneficiaries.
With the new amendments in the acts, people can voluntarily share their unique identification number to get new mobile phone connections and also to open new bank accounts. With these changes the Aadhaar holder can go with offline verification using the QR code. This will help the user not to share his/her Aadhaar number directly. The goevrnment also asked the private e wallet companies to make e kyc compulsory for their customers to use the e wallet service .
As per a source the private firms that are using Aadhaar as a KYC doc need to guarantee the safety and privacy of the Aadhaar info. Two of the amendments will work towards the voluntary sharing of the Aadhaar number to avail new mobile connection and for opening bank accounts. The amendments were made in the Telegraph Act and PMLA with respect to the original Aadhaar act. In the winter sessions the move towards the amendments will be presented in the parliament by the current government. As per the sources a child after entering 18 years can get out of the Aadhaar data who enrolled earlier for Aadhaar via his/her parents.
Saying that there is no legal backing for the seeding of the bio metrics with SIMs and bank accounts, the Supreme Court has ruled out Section 57 of the Aadhaar act. To avoid this, the government has made changes to Telegraph Act and provided legal backing so as to issue the mobile SIMs through Aadhaar. On the other hand the amendment to the PMLA will allow the individuals to link their bank accounts to Aadhaar through the KYC.
Also, under these changes to the existing laws, government has suggested an imprisonment of up to 10 years for attempting to hack Aadhaar data, which is 3 years now. Action will be taken against those individuals who deny any service in order to get an Aadhaar as per the new changes in the amendments.