The government has extended by 15 days the deadline for public feedback on its proposal to allow private entities to conduct verification of Aadhaar numbers to May 20, reported The Economic Times.
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) had released a draft of the proposal to allow non-government and state entities to authenticate Aadhaar on April 20. It sought public feedback on the proposed draft till May 5.
As per the proposed amendment, entities other than the central and state government can now seek permission for Aadhaar authentication in certain cases.
All non-government entities which want to use the Aadhaar authentication procedure would have to prepare a proposal detailing the justification for using the process, the ministry had proposed.
If the concerned ministry or government department is convinced that the proposal for which Aadhaar authentication is being sought is in the public interest, it will forward the proposal to the central government, which will forward it to the Unique Identification Authority of India, the IT ministry proposed.
The proposal had, however, come under criticism from privacy experts and lawyers who said that the proposal would make users more susceptible to fraud.
In 2018, the Supreme Court had in a judgment held that though Aadhaar numbers could be used to identify the rightful recipients of state welfare, private entities would not be able to conduct such verification.