Citizens not sure to link Aadhaar details with e-commerce, digital wallets

In recent past, the government has laid a lot of emphasis on consumers to link their Aadhaar with all important documents like PAN, bank account, mobile number, insurance policies and so on. A majority of residents are still uncomfortable in using their Aadhaar accounts to access e-commerce accounts or digital wallets.

A survey was conducted by LocalCircles was conducted on around 20,000 people, broadly on the subjects of using Aadhaar details on various platforms.   61 percent citizens would not feel comfortable in linking their Aadhaar with their e-commerce site accounts while 30 percent said they were fine with it.  49 percent refused in linking Aadhaar with their payment wallet accounts while 33 percent agreed, and 18 percent were neutral. Around 94 percent replied in an affirmative on asking if there should be a financial penalty for banks, telecom providers or any other organisations that compromise their Aadhaar, bank or call/data transaction details. They said that in case of data leakage, the respective bank or telecom operator should be severely penalised to ensure that they keep the data security measure to the optimum levels.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) recently assured that the Aadhaar data was fully safe and secure, and there has never been a breach or data leak at the UIDAI on being alleged that "210 Government sites made Aadhaar info public"  The UIDAI in a notification said the data on these mentioned websites was placed in a public domain as a measure of proactive disclosure under Right to Information (RTI) Act by government and institutional websites, which included the beneficiaries' name, address, bank account, and other details, which also included the Aadhaar number and were collected from the third party/users for various welfare schemes.