Recently, the Government had amended the Aadhaar Act 2016 allowing private sector to use Aadhaar authentication for delivering services, (Also refer article in HT). This would allow e commerce, travel, tourism, hospitality and health sector in Non Government sector to use Aadhaar authentication. This was a significant departure from the Supreme Court ruling which had disallowed the use of Aahaar by private sector. On 25th March 2025, MeitY had issued further clarifications through a circular and prescribed standard operating procedures for permitting the use of Aadhaar by non Government entities.
A new Aadhar App with face recognition has also been introduced whereby Hotels, airports and other verification points can use a Face Recognition App instead of providing copies of Aadhaar.
To supplement these efforts of finding more uses for Aadhaar in business, the Government is now set to make further amendments to bring the use of Aadhaar in tune with the DPDPA 2023. The IT Minister Mr Ashwin Vaishnaw has stated that substantial amendments would be made in the Aadhaar Act to harmonize it with the DPDPA 2023.
The minister has stated that the amendments will focus on prevention of re-use of consent and purpose based data minimization.
With these changes the possibility of use of Aahdaar for verification of age under the DPDPA will be also facilitated.
We look forward to the details to be announced.
As expected, some murmurs of discontent has started and the possibility of a legal challenge of the amendments may not be ruled out.
Naavi
Also refer:
https://www.amsshardul.com/insight/the-aadhaar-ammendment-and-its-discontent
