India reaffirms confidence in Aadhaar technology, calls Moody’s opinions baseless

India has reassured confidence in Aadhaar technology after the US-based rating agency highlighted concerns about it like establishing authorisation and biometric reliability.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issued a strong rebuttal to Moody's Investors Service by saying, "A certain investor service has, without citing any evidence or basis, made sweeping assertions against Aadhaar, the most trusted digital ID in the world. Over the last decade, over a billion Indians have expressed their trust in Aadhaar by using it to authenticate themselves over 100 billion times".

Also read: Don't have a PAN or Aadhaar number? You cannot claim an income tax refund

The Union Ministry of Electronic and IT said that Moody's report "does not cite either primary or secondary data or research in support of the opinions presented in it".

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Moody's in its report had said that Aadhaar's system often results in service denials, and questioned the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual labourers.

The ministry, addressing the concerns, said that payments to workers under schemes like the country's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are made by directly crediting money in their account and does not require the worker to authenticate using their biometrics.

Also read: How much gold can I buy in cash and do I need to submit my ID proof for the same?

Moody's has ignored that biometric submission is also possible through contactless means like face authentication and iris authentication, the Central government added.

"In addition, the option of mobile OTP is also available in many use cases. The report also avers that there are security and privacy vulnerabilities in a centralised Aadhaar system. The factual position in this regard has been repeatedly disclosed in response to Parliament questions, where Parliament has been categorically informed that till date no breach has been reported from the Aadhaar database," the statement said.

The government said that no breach has been reported from the Aadhaar database so far. Additionally, the Centre said that global investment banks such as IMF and World Bank have lauded the role of Aadhaar.

Recently, the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), in a report prepared by the World Bank, has stated that the “implementation of DPIs such as Aadhaar (a foundational digital ID system), along with the Jan Dhan bank accounts, and mobile phones, is considered to have played a critical role in moving ownership of transaction accounts from approximately one-fourth of adults in 2008 to over 80%  now—a journey that it is estimated could have taken up to 47 years without DPIs".

The Aadhaar card, which is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), has a unique number tied to an individual's fingerprints, face, and eye scan.