How can you expect UIDAI to match fingerprints of 100 crore people?: Madras HC ridicules petition

The Madras High Court on Thursday questioned how Tamil Nadu police could expect the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to compare the fingerprints of an unclaimed body with the Aadhaar data of over 100 crore people to ascertain the identity of the dead.

During the hearing, Justice P. Velmurugan said it was “ridiculous” on the part of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Tindivanam Sub Division, Villupuram district, to have filed a petition seeking a direction to the UIDAI to provide the demographic details of an unidentified body using its fingerprints.

“Our country has a population of 1.4 billion. Assuming 1 billion people had enrolled for Aadhaar so far, do you expect UIDAI to obtain fingerprints of dead bodies, in every unsolved criminal case, and compare them with the biometric data pertaining to 100 crore people?” the judge asked.


He further said that the police should not waste time bringing up such matters with the UIDAI just because they were unable to make a breakthrough in criminal cases involving unknown bodies. "Aadhaar is not the only way to solve a crime, there were other means of investigation too," he said.

The petition filed by the DSP was dismissed after Additional Solicitor General AR.L. Sundaresan, assisted by Central government senior panel counsel K. Srinivasamurthy, said, it would be impossible to compare the fingerprints of the dead with the Aadhaar database and provide demographic information to the police.

The defendant told the court that the UIDAI would be able to do only a one-to-one match, which means it could take the fingerprints and iris scan of an individual holding a valid 12-digit Aadhaar number and find out whether they match with his/her core biometric data obtained while enrolling for Aadhaar.