Home Ministry to assist UIDAI in bio-metric data-collection

June 8, 2012

As per the Union Cabinet, the Home Ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will together collect biometric data of 1.2 billion Indians.

What was the issue?

Home Ministry and the UIDAI were debating over the issue of collection of biometric data which necessitates the right to scan people’s eyes and fingerprints. The issue was settled by a cabinet committee on UIDAI which directed UIDAI (which comes under the Planning Commission) to issue 600 million cards in 16 states and union Territories and asked the Home Ministry to cover the remaining 600 million people as part of the National Population Register (NPR) being prepared by the Registrar General of India. NPR project again came to halt because of the UID scheme. NPR programme is facing hurdles in collection of photographs and biometric information on account of UIDAI. UIDAI is objecting to the conduct of NPR camps in certain states and is also refusing to accept the biometric data of NPR for de-duplication and generation of Aadhaar number. NPR would manifest into resident identity card which will culminate in a citizenship card.