BENGALURU: Organ donors in Karnataka will soon have to provide their Aadhaar details while pledging their organs as the state is trying to streamline its organ donor registry.

Health ministry principal secretary Shalini Rajneesh said biometric data matching could minimise waiting hours, and help save another life. Doctors could just take the thumbprint of the brain-dead patient and check online to see if he/she had pledged organs and then go ahead with the procedure.

Currently, doctors find it hard to discuss organ donation with the bereaved family. The government is hoping that they can speed up the process of convincing the family to consent to organ donation if the donor has already linked his Aadhaar details to the organ donation registry. Often, the donor does not inform the family that he/she has pledged organs and doctors spend precious time trying to convince the family that the patient has given prior consent, Rajneesh said.

The initiative will begin on Sunday when 1,500 yoga enthusiasts, performing mass yoga to create a Guinness record, will also provide their Aadhaar details and pledge their organs for donation thereby creating another world record.

However, Anivar Aravind, a prominent internet researcher on digital rights, said "... the government is using Aadhaar even after death for authenticating consent. A patient's data is confidential and should not be centralised without laws on protection of data or privacy rights," he said.

