• Source:JND
Add as a preferred

Centre on Monday responded to International credit agency Moody's Investors Service's claims that the Aadhaar system often results in service denials and that the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual labourers, in hot and humid climates is questionable. Taking strong note of Moody's views, the Central government said that the report is prepared "without citing any evidence or basis" and that it is baseless.

In an official statement, the Ministry of Electronics and IT said that Aadhaar is the foundational Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) of the India stack and that over a billion Indians trust it.

"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. To ignore such an unprecedented vote of confidence in an identity system is to imply that the users do not understand what is in their own interest," read the official statement.

ALSO READ: Manipur Violence: Pictures Of Bodies Of Two Meitei Students Go Viral Days After Internet Restoration

It further added that the report in question does not cite either primary or secondary data or research in support of the opinions presented in it. The statement said that the investor service did not make any attempt to ascertain facts regarding the issues raised by the Authority.

"The sole reference cited in the report is in respect of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), by referring to its website. However, the report incorrectly cites the number of Aadhaars issued as 1.2 billion, although the website prominently gives the updated numbers," said the statement.

ALSO READ Bengaluru Bandh: Traffic Disrupted, Schools Closed Amid Strike Over Cauvery Water Dispute; Security Heightened

The government mentioned that the report also avers that there are security and privacy vulnerabilities in a centralised Aadhaar system.

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 percent now—a journey that it is estimated could have taken up to 47 years without DPIs," the release stated.

(With inputs from ANI)