Watch: Off Centre With Usha Ramanathan

Notified in 2009 the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was set up to create a biometric based unique identification for Indian citizens. This was rolled out as Aadhaar and became the world’s largest and most ambitious identification system. Meant primarily to help the efficient targeting of government subsidies and direct benefits of welfare schemes, it’s now mandatory to link the Aadhaar ID to all public and private services and processes. As the Supreme Court hears as many as 27 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, on Off Centre legal researcher Usha Ramanathan explains why many believe that Aadhaar makes citizens vulnerable.