BENGALURU: Amazon's customer care agents are asking its users to reveal their Aadhaar number as an identity proof to track lost packages, according to several customers quoted in an online report.

This move poses question of a private company mandatorily asking a customer to reveal the details of a government-certified document. Experts believe using Aadhaar for identification proof by a private company is not described as one of the five use cases of the card - which include Jan Dhan accounts and pension, among others.

Moreover, the use of Aadhaar as an identity proof in online retail could create privacy issues, according to lawyer Smitha Prasad."The use of Aadhaar in this manner could lead to privacy risks - in terms of implications of publication of Aadhaar data, as well as the use of data including Aadhaar and other customer information that could lead to individual profiling," said Prasad, project manager, centre for communication governance at National Law University, Delhi. - Our Bureau



Also Read: SC pulls up banks, telecom companies for creating panic on Aadhaar linking

However, Amazon believes it has a secure form of storing information. "Amazon continues to look for the most robust practices towards customer support and this process is only done in limited cases where a detailed check is needed for a missing or wrong delivery. In such cases, customers are requested to upload a scanned copy of their Aadhaar card on their Amazon.in account, which is a secure form of storing information," added the spokesperson.