Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Unique Identification Authority of India's enrolment process vulnerability

The Home Ministry has identified flaws where UID numbers were issued on the basis of false affidavits (Economic Times)
"Cases have come to light wherein enrolments were being done on the basis of affidavits which were being sold by unscrupulous persons without any verification," the ministry has warned in a note to the CCUIDAI, stressing that UIDAI registrars enrol residents on a 'walk-in' basis, based on documents whose authenticity is not checked.
India's UID Project is meant, in part, to ameliorate the societal damage caused by endemic corruption. It is therefore little surprise that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) faces a risk that its mission will be complicated by corruption.

Of course, the amount of database "garbage in" should me minimized. But there are also some powerful auditing tools available to the UIDAI for ongoing database management to detect double enrollments, etc. The UIDAI's job will be ongoing. It will not end when the current population is enrolled.