No plans to make Aadhaar mandatory for booking air tickets: Centre tells MPs

The government has no plans to make Aadhaar number mandatory for booking air tickets, Parliament's Standing Committee on Home Affairs has been told.

File image of Aadhaar cards. CNN News 18

This was conveyed to a group of MPs by officials led by Union home secretary-designate Rajiv Gauba on Thursday. At the meeting of the standing committee, headed by P Chidambaram, the top officials said no decision has been taken by the government in this regard, an MP, who attended the meeting, told PTI.
The parliamentarians were assured by the officials that Aadhaar data was safe and there was no chance of it falling in wrong hands as the main server was placed in a foolproof system.

The queries by members of the panel were answered by the representatives of the home ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the nodal authority for Aadhaar in the country.

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Apart from Aadhaar, the panel also discussed various national security issues, officials said. When the MPs asked why the government was linking Aadhaar number with banks, mobile connections, welfare schemes, they said that the decision had been taken by the political executive and they were not in a position to answer it. Asked how citizen's privacy would be protected when the Aadhaar data was collected by private entities, the officials said the entire software was handled by the UIDAI and there
was no chance of the Aadhaar data falling in wrong hands, another MP said.

The officials told the lawmakers that a final decision on the privacy issues related to Aadhaar would be taken only after a verdict of the Supreme Court, which is hearing a case related to privacy.