All the telecom operators have received instruction from the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) to provide the customers with the facility to track the status of their mobile SIM which are linked to the Aadhaar number, a step to guard against any unauthorized linking.
This decision is the result of some fraudulence which some retailers and agents of telecom companies allegedly misusing Aadhaar authentication facility to issue new SIMs or to re – verify mobile numbers other than that of the Aadhaar holders. It has instructed the operators to have “sufficient supervision” in order to avoid any unauthorized authentication transactions.
So, the telecom operators are required to come up with a mechanism which includes SMS – based facility that will both allow the subscribers to check whether their mobile number is linked with 12 digit unique identification numbers and also be informed about other mobile numbers issued or verified against their Aadhaar number.
The services will be provided to the customers through channels such as customer care number, email, web portal, SMS or app to report any unauthorised mobile number linked with their Aadhaar number.
According to the sources
One of the official of UIDAI recently also stated that
So far more than 1.2 billion residents have already enrolled for the Aadhaar – the unique 12 digit number which is backed by the fingerprints, iris scans, and certain other demographic details and this flagship programme by the government is considered to be the world’s largest biometric database.
Aadhaar has been made mandatory for almost all the other government official documents.