Indian Planning Commission launches Aadhaar based attendance system

Biometric attendance system is quite common in the private sector; however, it is not a familiar process in the public sector.

To demonstrate the efficiency of Aadhaar authentication, Planning Commission of India, has installed an Aadhaar based attendance system in its offices. Like all new things, this novel step had a many perplexed employee.

In Planning Commission’s office at Sansad Marg, the employee feeds in his or her employee code and Aadhaar number while registering. Once that is done, the finger print is more than enough for making biometric attendance.

The initial estimates show that the cost of the Aadhaar based biometric attendance is less than ten percent of a normal biometric attendance system.

Remote authentication is also possible in the Aadhaar based biometric attendance system. This is very useful where there are field officers.

As UIDAI has standardized Aadhaar formats, a low cost Aadhaar based attendance system can be installed in offices having a small number of employees.

The true success will be when other Government offices also adopt the Aadhaar authentication tool.

Will employees resist Aadhaar based biometric attendance?

 

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Waiver of APB (Aadhaar Payment Bridge) Transaction Charges by NPCI

 

In view of the varied benefits that DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) is channelizing to the Indian economy, NPCI the promoters of ABP (Aadhaar Payment Bridge) has decided not to collect any service fees from the Banks.

 

Please refer to NPCI Circular, for more details.

 

NPCI Board has decided to offer APB transaction processing at no charge to the banks (including interchange fee) for the period 01st July, 2013 to 31st March, 2014.

 

As readers are aware that,  APB system was implemented to promote financial inclusion and thereby ensuring that customers receive benefits & subsidies of various state/central government schemes directly into their bank accounts using the Aadhaar numbers under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

 

Another source of incentive for the Banks on the DBT transactions is the 1% commission being paid to encourage banks to tie-up with BC’s (Business Correspondents) for withdrawals by account holders. This incentive is also a tool to reduce the transactions costs of banks in maintaining accounts of DBT beneficiaries.

 

 

 

 

UIDAI clarifications: Cut away portion, eAadhaar valid proofs of identity, address

A majority of complaints regarding Aadhaar Cards is that many institutions / departments are refusing acceptance of cut away portion of Aadhaar letter as a valid document.

UIDAI has clarified that ‘The Information Technology Act, 2000’, provides for legal recognition of electronic records with digital signatures.

It may be noted that eAadhaar is digitally certified. Hence, e-Aadhaar or cut-away portion of Aadhaar letter can be considered a valid proof of identity and address.

The UIDAI which is implementing the Aadhaar project clarified in a statement that both — e-Aadhaar and cut-away portion of Aadhaar letter, is to be considered as a valid proof of identity and address.

According to the UIDAI, the e-Aadhaar document is digitally signed, using certificate issued by NIC as per the IT Act.

Further, all the data printed in eAadhaar is the same data as printed in Aadhaar letter, making it a valid and secured electronic document, which should be treated at par with a printed Aadhaar letter.

A “Resident Portal” had been launched to enable the residents download their e-Aadhaar, an electronically generated Aadhaar letter, from the website of UIDAI.

In addition, Common Service Centres, set up in States, are also catering to the needs of the residents with regards to download and printing of e-Aadhaar.

UIDAI said the cut away portion of Aadhaar letter is as an officially valid document as it contains all the details of Aadhaar letter such as name, address, Aadhaar number, photograph and logo of the Aadhaar Project.

The cut away portion of Aadhaar letter also carries a quick response (QR) code containing the demographic details of the resident.

However, it is yet to be seen as to how departments/organizations accepting Aadhaar Cards as Identity/Address Proof, treat eAadhaar letters.

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Aadhaar eKYC finally goes online

            eKYC  (electronic Know Your Customer) services was one of the UIDAIs’ pet ideas. Over the last 6 months, there has been extensive testing of the end-to-end channel, to ensure minimal glitches in the commercial launch.

Today, the UIDAIs’ eKYC was formally opened for commercial usage.

The core idea of the eKYC Aadhaar service is to enable individuals to authorise service providers to receive electronic copy of their proof of identity and address.  The eKYC service can be deployed by different agencies to verify a resident’s identity and address.

Only demographic information (Name, Address, Date of Birth, Gender, Photograph & Mobile Number) that is collected during Aadhaar enrolment will be shared, at the request of, and/or with the consent of the Aadhaar number holder.

However the information will be available only for few seconds to the service provider to avoid any misuse.

The service providers have to set up the required IT Infrastructure to establish linkage with the core Aadhaar server. As of now with 35 crs Aadhaar numbers already issued, sufficient safeguards have been built in to ensure that the accessed data is not abused. However, more safeguards will be introduced as and when any abuse is noticed. And, we Indians are famous for working round the system.

The eKYC service stipulates that the data will be shared at the request of, and/or with the consent of the Aadhaar number holder.

Digitally signed electronic KYC data provided by UIDAI is machine readable, making it possible for the service provider to directly store it as the customer record in their database for purposes of service, audit, etc. without human intervention making the process low cost and error free.

The Aadhaar e-KYC API returns data along with a unique transaction code. The fact that the data is digitally signed by UIDAI and that every transaction has a unique code makes it possible to perform an electronic audit at a later point in time for any particular transaction. Ideally, the Unique Transaction Code should be part of the Service Provider’s database, for easy grievance resolution.

Like all new products, initially this service is offered by UIDAI free of cost.