Aadhaar still used for SIM card

One Month ago, the Supreme Court of India banned the use of Aadhaar based eKYC for issuing the SIM cards to the public. But after SC's order, many well-known telecom companies are still practicing this rule.

According to a report by TOI, many executives of telecom companies said this rule of Ekyc OR Aadhaar biometric facility is still in use because it is the simplest and user-friendly way of issuing SIM cards without any long work process.

One of the officials also said that they will use this facility until the Department Of Telecom (DoT) will give any specific order to discontinue it. Till then we will continue to practice the Aadhaar biometric facility.

"We have alerted DoT about the issue. The matter has to be dealt by it," said an official from Unique Identification Authority of India when they came to know that some telecom companies are violating the order of Supreme Court.

The UIDAI on 1^st October 2018 gave a written to telecom companies which read, "Aadhaar services cannot be used for works like verification or acidification of mobile connections. If the UIDAI gets no reaction of banning the use of Aadhaar biometric facility by 15^th of October, the authentication services will be terminated without any notice."

Though the Supreme Court had banned the use of Aadhaar for mobile connections on 26^th of September the telecom companies feel that the Aadhaar card facility was convenient and easy as it saved their time in long paper-work methods like PAN card, Driving License, Voter ID and many more for authentication.

The DoT officials said that they are aware of every single thing going around them and they are working for a solution to the problem. They also said, the solution derived will be more convenient, faster as well as seamless authentication.

One of the official also said, "There is nothing illegal whatever the telecom companies are doing. Now we are going through the judgment thoroughly and time should be given to the telecom companies to move on with some new techniques."

Reportedly, the government is planning for a hassle free way of mobile connection other than these Aadhaar based e-KYC process.

UIDAI and DoT said in a statement that, "In the proposed process, live photograph of the person with latitude, longitude, and time stamp will be captured. The SIM card agent will be authenticated through OTP and SIM card will be issued. This process will be completely hassle-free and digital."

DG Ranjan Mathews of Telecom industry body cellular operators association of India said, "Telecom operators always comply with instructions and regulations passed by DoT and we will adhere to the Supreme Court's decision. We shall await further orders and instructions from DoT. We believe that Aadhaar is a robust and convenient method of subscriber authentication."