As Aadhaar saturation has reached near universal among the adult population, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has decided to work on five core areas to provide continued support to residents in their daily lives, enhance data security, and further the cause of good governance.

The five core areas are – resident centricity; expanding the usage of Aadhaar; security and privacy; continuous technology upgradation; and collaborating with global economies and supporting them in their aspiration to achieve the sustainable development goal (SDG) of providing legal identity for all.

These five focus areas were deliberated in a daylong brainstorming session at Kevadia (Gujarat). UIDAI CEO Dr Saurabh Garg maintained that there is and will always be a continuous focus on how to support residents in improving ease of living, and better their experience in availing services.

The Authority is constantly exploring and adopting ways to expand the use of Aadhaar for both ease of living as well as ease of doing business. Its sandbox environment will allow startups, professionals, and companies to explore and test innovation applications for increasing the use of Aadhaar. From expanding e-KYC adoption to popularizing offline verification for better service delivery to residents, UIDAI will strive to expand use of Aadhaar in multiple ways.

Aadhaar has emerged as a tool of good governance, of empowerment and service delivery. Since the first Aadhaar number was generated in 2010, UIDAI has issued over 1.35 billion Aadhaars and has carried out more than 88 billion authentication transactions so far; indicative of how it is touching residents’ lives. UIDAI has also executed over 710 million Aadhaar updates following requests from residents since 2010.

UIDAI will be at the forefront of technology up-gradation to further enhance data security and privacy, seamless service delivery, and proactively address new-age cyber security risks.

UIDAI has urged residents who have got their Aadhaar issued 10 years back and have never updated after that in these years, to get their documents updated. Residents can update their Aadhaars by uploading supportive documents, (proof of identity and proof of address) either online through myAadhaar portal or offline by visiting the nearest Aadhaar centre.