The Parliament on Monday passed an Aadhar and other laws, Amendment Bill, 2019, that provides voluntarily use of Aadhaar number to establish identity, by authentication or offline verification.
The Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha after Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad assured the House that the Union Government will soon bring a comprehensive law to protect the data. The Bill had earlier been passed in the Lok Sabha.
Speaking in the house, Prasad said, ‘Data sovereignty is integral to us and we will never compromise on that’, he said while adding that the Government will soon bring a comprehensive bill on Data Protection’.
The Bill was earlier cleared in Lok Sabha on January 4 but could not be taken up for consideration by the Rajya Sabha. However, The Union Cabinet had in June last month cleared the bill. This legislation will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID as a means of identity verification for obtaining services such as opening a bank account, or new SIM connection etc.
The Bill also sought to omit the Section 57 of the Aadhar Act relating to the use of Aadhar by private entities. The changes have been brought up by amending the Aadhaar Act, Indian Telegraph Act, and Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Hailing his government, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, the Adhar Amendment Bill will give an option to children to cancel their Adhar number on attaining the age of 18 years.
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