20 JAN Delhi: As Aadhaar saturation has reached near universal among adult population, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) deliberated on and decided to work on five core areas to provide continued support to residents in their daily lives, further enhance data security, and play a stellar role in furthering the cause of good governance.The five core areas are – resident centricity, expanding the usage of Aadhaar, security and privacy, continuous technology upgradation, and collaborate with global economies and support them in their aspiration to achieve SDG 16.9 (provide legal identity for all).These five focus areas were deliberated in a daylong brainstorming session at Kevadia (Gujarat). Dr. Saurabh Garg, CEO, UIDAI 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 resident’s lives. UIDAI has also executed over 710 million Aadhaar updations following requests from residents since 2010.
