UID can solve problem of authenticating identities across multiple services

While the Indian government spends an increasing amount of money towards public welfare, the actual benefits of such schemes seldom reach the intended population. Consider the popular National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). With fund allocation close to Rs 39,000 crore, NREGA has been affected by leakage of funds due to fake attendance.

As more public welfare schemes are launched by the government, India needs a way to identify individuals who are genuinely poor and deserve benefits.In this context, the Unique Identification project—where every Indian will be given a unique number—is of supreme importance.

To make sure that the system is foolproof, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will capture three key biometric characteristics of citizens. This includes the face, ten finger prints and iris scans of both eyes.

Once the system is fully developed, it can become the foundation or the platform to check an individual’s identity across multiple services such as free education, public distribution systems and pension schemes. It would also serve to provide
benefits to victims of natural disasters. In the case of NREGA, verification can
be done by asking the concerned individual to place any finger on a biometric
device. This information can be immediately checked and authenticated against the information available in the system. “Authentication can be done on a mobile phone, through the Internet or can be embedded in a software program with XML. This can then be used as an open platform on which other applications can be run. This is where the true value of the service will start coming out,” said Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of the UIDAI, on the sidelines of the Nasscom 2010 India Leadership conference.

Nilekani says that possibilities are limitless given that the platform’s usage is limited to the imagination of government agencies or even entrepreneurs who could develop innovative applications on top of the platform.

The UIDAI has taken care of privacy concerns by ensuring that the system will only authenticate the identity of the person via a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ option. The system cannot be read or used to extract an individual’s personal information.

While the scale of the project is ambitious, so are the benefits. Technology, if implemented properly, has the potential to propel the lives of millions of Indians, and bring about true social transformation. India has over 75 million homeless
people. Since identity is often linked to an address, homeless people lose out
on several benefits. The Unique ID project can help remove the barriers that
have been created due to the lack of an identity.