Infants set to get Aadhaar: Here is why

New Delhi, Jun 15: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which has enrolled nearly all of India's adult population since 2010, is now looking to expand Aadhaar to cover a person's entire lifecycle with two pilot programmes, a media report said on Wednesday.

According to a report published in The Economic Times, UIDAI will integrate data from birth to death of citizens to 12-digit Aadhaar number.

Aadhaar, issued by the UIDAI also plans to issue temporary Aadhar numbers to newborn infants. Teams will visit newborns' families and complete the formalities of registering their biometrics. Once a child reaches the age of 18, biometrics are re-registered. This will also ensure that multiple IDs are not generated for the same child.

The report added that only a quarter of the children below the age of five are registered with the identity database.

UIDAI also plans to approach public and private hospitals for data on the deceased to ensure there is no duplication.

The objective behind linking an individual's entire lifecycle data to Aadhar is to prevent the misuse of government benefits and deepen its reach countrywide. The government believes that integrating birth-to-death data will prevent the misappropriation of welfare schemes and also no one will be left out of the social security net.

Aadhaar was launched in 2010 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Touted to be the world's largest biometric identity database, it has enrolled almost all of India's adult population.

Officials have told ET that the pilot for these two ( programmes) will begin shortly.