india

Updated: Feb 06, 2019 07:49 IST

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) told the Delhi high court on Tuesday that it was not legally and technologically feasible to use Aadhaar biometrics for forensic purposes like identification of dead persons.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V Kameswar Rao was told that the Supreme Court, in the Aadhaar judgment delivered last year, had stated that biometrics can be used only for specific purposes that have been mentioned in the Act.

The reply came while hearing a plea filed by advocate Amit Sahni seeking directions on the use of Aadhaar biometrics in the identification of the dead bodies.

In the reply, UIDAI contended that the law was enacted to provide good governance as well as an efficient, transparent and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits, services and social schemes.

However, countering the claims, advocate Sahni said that if Aadhaar was being used to trace and identify missing children, it can be used to identify unidentified bodies as well.

Following this, the court asked the UIDAI to respond and listed the matter for further hearing on April 23.

“The technological architecture of UIDAI or its mandate for Aadhaar-based authentication does not allow for any instance of 1:1 matching wherein fingerprints are matched against the other fingerprints in the UIDAI database,” the affidavit said.

It asserted that “sharing of biometric information or use of biometric information for any purpose other than generation of Aadhaar number and authentication under the Aadhaar Act is impermissible”.