What are the Advantages and Risks of Aadhaar Seeding?

The government has been pushing the individuals to link their Aadhaar numbers with a variety of services for quite some time now. Some examples include mutual funds accounts, bank accounts, mobile numbers, etc. In fact, recently the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) also announced that you need to link your Aadhaar to your insurance policies as per the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017.

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It’s possible that in a few years, all the services that you use will require Aadhaar linkage. However, it begs the question- what’s the actual advantage of all this? Are there any risks?

The Merits

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), i.e. the body that issues and regulates the Aadhaar, says that linking Aadhaar with various government schemes makes it easier to identify fake accounts and ensure that the benefits of social welfare schemes such as LPG subsidy, pensions, etc. reach the right and deserving people.

Although, there is no mention of why a person who doesn’t want or get these subsidies needs to link their Aadhaar as well.

According to Nakul Saxena, who is a former banker now working with software think-tank iSpirt Foundation, it’s possible that many of the bank accounts in the system were created using copied signatures and fake documents. These have to be verified with Aadhaar now.

The Risks

On the surface, Aadhaar seeding may seem to offer many advantages. However, there are things that definitely raise concerns.

For starters, the fact that Aadhaar is linked to so many things makes it difficult not to have disastrous results if a person hacks into yours.

Rahul Narayan, who is a Supreme Court advocate and one of the lawyers who challenged Aadhaar linking in the court, says that for now, your bank knows something about you, your insurer also knows something, etc. However, if a person hacks all these segments then they will know all the things about you. Note: The Aadhaars of as many as 130 million citizens have been compromised to this day, as per a study by Centre for Internet and Society.

So, overall, it’s safe to say that Aadhaar has its advantages. However, security remains a big concern. Unless the government is not able to provide a high-level of security to the citizens, Aadhaar linking to important accounts should be proceeded with caution.