- UIDAI expands offline Aadhaar verification to 300 entities.
- Reduces paper use, enhances privacy with digital identity checks.
- Covers hospitality, healthcare, gig economy, aligning with DPDP.
Checking into a hotel or verifying the identity of a gig worker will no longer require physical photocopies of Aadhaar cards. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has expanded its consent-based offline verification system across key consumer services, bringing 300 organisations on board since January to reduce paper-based risks and enhance user privacy.
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Scope Of Offline Verification Seeking Entities (OVSEs)
The 300 newly onboarded Offline Verification Seeking Entities (OVSEs) span multiple sectors to replace physical document collection with digital checks. Key areas include:
- Hospitality and Travel: Streamlining hotel check-in procedures, venue entry, and travel validation.
- Healthcare and Education: Enabling digital identity checks for hospital admissions and university enrollments.
- Gig Economy and Consumer Services: Fast-tracking onboarding and background checks for platform workers, events, and service providers.
How The Consent-Based Offline Verification System Works
Under the updated framework, individuals share their identity credentials directly through the Aadhaar App only after giving consent. The system incorporates:
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- Selective Data Sharing: Users can choose whether to share complete or selected information with the requesting entity.
- Number Masking: The individual's 12-digit Aadhaar number is never transferred to the organisation conducting the verification.
- Offline Validation: The verification operates entirely offline, meaning verifying organisations do not need direct access to UIDAI's central identity database.
Alignment With Digital Data Protection Frameworks
UIDAI emphasised that the expansion directly aligns with India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, which focuses on consent and data collection limitation, while making identity verification convenient via smartphones.
(With Inputs From Jagran.com)