GD TOPIC: LINKING AADHAAR-MOBILE LINKING – GOOD OR BAD?

Aadhaar-Mobile link is now mandatory for every telecom user in India. The government of India in now wants a make traceability easier and for that, every sim card is now mandatory to link with Aadhaar.

According to the orders issued by the UIDAI and the mobile companies, all the mobile phone subscribers are requested to mandatorily link their SIM cards with their Aadhaar Number by 31st March 2018.

Linking Aadhaar card with Mobile SIM is a burning topic for discussion lots of people and media houses now criticizing this step but people are also there who are in favor of this initiative.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of today GD topics Linking Aadhaar-Mobile linking – Good or Bad?

In Favor:-

• Aadhaar is an identity and address proof. The objective of linking SIM with Aadhaar Card is to remove the illegal users and to decrease the misuse of mobile phones for anti-social activities.
• Linking Aadhaar card with Mobile SIM will promote the use of Aadhaar card as a single prof across the country. Because a Mobile phone is a device which peoples carry whew ever they are traveling, linking Aadhaar will provide traceability to the government.
• The 12-digit unique identification number, Aadhaar, serves to eliminate the duplicate “persons” in the demographics. This serves to create specificity in the targeting of the needy in various government schemes.
• Aadhaar is safe, as the data collected by the UIDAI is highly encrypted and protected to prevent leakage and UIDAI does not share any information with anyone under general circumstances.

Against:-

• It directly attacks the right to privacy, which is a fundamental right of every citizen, protected under the Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Aadhaar stores information like biometrics fingerprints, photo, eye scan, date of birth, address etc. which can be used for commercial propose.
• It may enable terrorists, criminals, and anti-national forces to obtain multiple SIMs through eKYC, claims of eKYC, or be submitting Aadhaar cards of other persons and use them for anti-national activities.
• The main danger with Aadhaar is about cyber-attack. Aadhaar is not fully safe and can be hack by the hacker. Hacked information can be used in bank and other financial sectors which is a great threat to national security.

Conclusion:-

Because everybody now days has SIM Card and sometimes more than two, the government feels tracking the SIM will be a strong verification factor. Just like PAN card Aadhaar can be a strong feature to track people. These kind of social identity numbers are common in other developed countries. Aadhaar card is safe and the information is encrypted so there is no need to worry about information leak. Finally, Aadhaar link is a good initiative and will be beneficial for the national security interest.