Date or place of birth will not be part of UID

BANGALORE: Whatever else the Unique ID might have, it shouldn’t have these — date and place of birth and your native state/district. All children too will get a UID number. These are among the guidelines laid down by the Demographic Data Standards and Verification Procedure (DDSVP) committee headed by former Central Vigilance Commission chairman N Vittal in its report to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). This to ensure demographic data is captured in a standardized manner so that the identity information works across all systems.

‘‘ The date/place of birth/ residence and other attributes should not be embedded in the UID number. When state/ district IDs are embedded, the number faces the risk of becoming invalid and misleading the authenticator when people move place to place. It can also lead to profiling or targeting based on region, state or a district from where the person hails.

There can be centralized database management systems which can index the records for rapid search and access without having to section data by location or date of birth,’’ the committee said in its report, a copy of which is available with TOI.

The Centre set up UIDAI and appointed Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani as chairman with a mandate to issue a unique identification number to all Indians.

UID for children:

The committee said all children will be assigned a number. ‘‘ Since children’s fingerprints are not fully formed, during enrolment, details of the parents should be captured to link the child to established UIDs so that either of the parents can be used to authenticate the child.’’

Interestingly , the committee said when the child’s biometrics are wellformed , biometrics will be captured and the child will be deduplicated to ensure the uniqueness of the child.

Leverage mobiles:

Given the rapid penetration of mobile phones and landlines across the country and across economic groups, the phone could become an enabling device used to authenticate a person, especially in villages where internet penetration is still low.

Introducer concept:

Coming to the aid of lakhs of Indians , specially the poor who don’t have any supporting documents to prove their identity, the committee told UIDAI to start an ‘introducer’ system where those Indians with a valid UID can validate these persons.

No Profiling

Name of father, husband, guardian, mother or wife is required but if adults don’t want to disclose such information, they need not Date, place of birth, place of residence may not be part of IUD to prevent authentication issues, discriminatory profiling Data to be stored in English and one official Indian language All enrolling agencies must be prepared to verify, accept supporting documents which carry information in local languages.

What will the Unique Identity Number (UID) really do ?