• The row between UIDAI Chairperson Nandan Nilekani and Home Minister P Chidambaram over the Unique Identification (UID) project has intensified. The Home Ministry has written to the Cabinet Secretary, seeking a clear cut direction on who will do the enrollment. 
  • In the note, the Home Secretary has stated that the UID data is not reliable as anyone can get themselves registered under any name with any address.
  • The note also says that the UID doesn't accept the MHA's data as it sees the ministry as competition.
  • The Home Minister has also written to the Prime Minister, saying a final decision needs to be taken soon, as the situation is leading to delays and embarrassment.
  • Earlier, Chidambaram had said that the biometric census done by the UID project did not pass security criteria.
  • Chidambaram had demanded that the biometric issue should be taken up immediately by the Cabinet committee on UID.
  • The Home Ministry claimed that UID can be generated by producing documents without any verification.
  • The Registrar General and Census Commissioner said that the job of collecting biometric data should be left to them.
  • The Home Minister, in a letter to Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, had made it clear that data collected by the UIDAI did not meet the degree of assurances required under the National Population Register from the point of view of national security.
  • He had said that the possibility of inclusion of non usual residents and creation of a false identity profile is also real.
  • However, defending the procedure, UIDAI Chairperson Nandan Nilekani had then said, "The Aadhaar cards have been given based on the UID data taken as per the accepted procedure."
 
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