NEW DELHI: The state government is working to come up with an Aadhaar vault to safeguard important personal details furnished by citizens for various schemes and services with their applications, officials said on Monday.
The Information and Technology Department of the government is implementing the project based on the directions and guidelines of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIADAI). The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has successfully tested the vault on a staging server, they said.
Aadhaar number is required to file online applications for various government schemes and services, which needs to be protected, said a senior government official.
The Aadhaar vault has many benefits as it ensures protection of sensitive identity data, affording high-level data security, thereby preventing misuse of details, he said.
Further, it supports secure integration of Aadhaar details with e-governance services. An agreement was signed by the government with the Centre for advanced computing in May this year, to store e-District, and proposed unified data hub (UDH) data in the Aadhaar vault. The e-District portal is used for submitting applications and to get documents like caste and income certificates.
In a recent meeting, IT minister Pankaj Singh reviewed the work on the project and instructed officials to speed it up.
How the Aadhaar Vault system works
The UIDAI developed Aadhaar Data Vault in 2017 after reports of misuse of consolidated Aadhaar data. It ensures that no data-collection or verification agency can consolidate Aadhaar data in local computers. Everytime an Aadhaar number is requested, the request passes through encrypted servers, and the number is not revealed till the request has been authenticated using an encryption key. The vault allows e-Governance and applications to eliminate Aadhaar footprint.