Unique National ID's for India
Unique National ID's will assist in addressing the rigged state elections, widespread embezzlement that affects subsidies and poverty alleviation programs such as NREGA. Further, addressing illegal immigration into India and terrorist threats is another goal of the program.
It is suggested that the plan is for each Indian citizen to have a unique identification number with associated identifying biometric data and photographs by 2011.
Government issued ID's are fragmented by purpose and region in India, which results in widespread bribery, denial of public services and loss of income, especially afflicting poor citizens.
As the unique identity database comes into existence, the various identity databases (voter ID, passports, ration cards, licenses, fishing permits, border area id cards) that already exist in India are planned to be linked to it. The Authority is liaising with various national, state and local government entities to begin the process. The Union Labor Ministry has offered its verified Employment Provident Fund (EPFO) database of 42 million citizens as the first database to be integrated into the unique ID system.
Other UID projects implemented on a smaller scale in India can also facilitate in the development of the national project. An example is a project developed by Wolf Frameworks Cloud Computing vendor and Social Education and Development Society (SEDS) for profiling and generating Unique Identification for more than 40,000 members in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.
The UID will link a person's Passport Number, Driving License, PAN card, Bank Accounts, Address, Voter ID, etc and all this information will be checked through a database. For example, it will highlight if someone has different addresses on PAN and driving license. Those who will opt out of this program will experience inconvenience in doing business, operating bank accounts which will require a UID.