UIDAI denies identification of accused in murder with biometrics on Aadhaar; 'Not allowed'

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on May 5 informed the Delhi High Court that chance fingerprints recorded for Aadhaar card issuance cannot be used to identify criminals or undertrials. In addition, the Authority asserted that data collected in the ambit of the Aadhaar card cannot be shared with investigating agencies for any or all biometric purposes. Data collected by Aadhaar cannot be further utilised for any other purposes except generating UIADI of a citizen. 

Data collected by Aadhaar cannot be used for any other purpose except generating UIADI

"Undoubtedly, the respondent cannot share the biometric identity of an individual with other agencies/persons, however, the issue in the present petition is, whether Aadhar Act 2016 permits the respondent to inform an Investigating Agency as to whether the chance prints and photographs retrieved by it from the place of occurrence matched with the biometric particulars of a person in the data and provide details with regard to his identity," UIDAI's submissions before the Court read. 

It further maintained that Aadhaar is only proof of the fact that the person showing the card does identify himself on the basis of the Aadhaar number and that he is the same person enrolled for Aadhaar with the biometric and demographic information at the time of issuance. 

Fingerprints data collected for Aadhaar cannot be used to identify criminals or solve crimes

UIDAI's submissions implied that Aadhaar has been enrolled to grant unique identity numbers to individuals but 'not for forensic or other purposes'. While stating that there is no possibility of duplicating the Aadhaar due to biometrics, UIDAI stated that sharing or using the chance fingerprints for any other purpose, other than the generation of Aadhaar number and authentication, is 'impermissible' under the Aadhaar Act, 2016.

The Act, as per UIDAI, "provides several safeguards in the form of security and confidentiality of information, restrictions on sharing information, disclosure of certain information and offences and penalties for breach of the Act or regulations."

A person's 'biometric is sensitive information and needs to be protected: UIDAI

Biometric information is unique to an individual and therefore is sensitive information and needs to be protected to thwart any possibility of misuse. As is evident from the above-mentioned provisions, sharing of biometric information or use of biometric information for any purpose other than the generation of the Aadhaar number and authentication under the Aadhaar Act is impermissible, the UIDAI noted. 

The Authority has further submitted, "...no Aadhaar data can be shared by any individual or entity with any individual or entity without the consent of the resident."

In the matter at hand, Delhi Police has said that an owner of jewellery shop HR jewellers at Adarsh Nagar was murdered by unknown persons and three years later, in June 2021, chance prints taken from the spot were sent to the forensic department but no match was identified on the database. Therefore, it contended that since the accused were not located or traceable, the intervention of the UIDAI was sought. 

However, the Court held that the matching of the fingerprints without mentioning the Aadhar card is not feasible and 'even the system cannot respond to it'.