How is Aadhaar Card Generated and Issued to Individuals

Aadhaar Card is a 12-digit unique number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) by taking an individual’s biometric and demographic information such as fingerprints, iris scan, and date of birth, address and others. The Indian government has made mandatory for all the residents of India to link Aadhaar Card with that of their PAN for filing their annual income tax return. The UIDAI has set certain parameters for Aadhaar generation and its issuance to the citizens of India which is unique in its way.

How is Aadhaar Generated?

Aadhaar generation involves certain processes such as quality check, packet validation, demographic and biometric de-duplication, and others. Aadhaar is considered to be generated successfully only if:

• Quality of enrolment data meets prescribed standards laid down by the UIDAI
• Enrolment packet passes all the validations done in the Central ID Repository (CIDR)
• No demographic/biometric duplicate is found

Due to the failure of any of the above-mentioned conditions, Aadhaar number will not be issued and enrolment will get rejected.

Process of Aadhaar Generation

Mentioned below are the different processes involved in the generation of Aadhaar Number:

1. Uploading Resident’s Data to CIDR: Under this process, the resident’s enrolment data is kept in the form of a software packet that gets encrypted after completion of the enrolment of the client itself. This is then uploaded to the Central ID Repository (CIDR) using the upload client provided to the Enrolment Agencies by the UIDAI. The uploaded packet records are maintained in the client software to prevent duplicate packets from being uploaded to the server.
2. CIDR Sanitary Checks: This process involves exhaustively checking the enrolment packet for validity- checksums, packet metadata, etc. – in the CIDR DMZ using automated process before it is moved to the production zone of CIDR for processing.
   Data Archival: All the contents of the packet are stored and read in a table form in CIDR before archiving so that the data is kept secure. Mentioned below are the following requirements under the archival system :
   a. All original packets are required to be archived as it is ensuring high availability and zero data loss.
   b. These archived packets are kept securely and separated from core enrolment and authentication systems.
   c. An archival system might allow on-demand data retrieval with appropriate access controls and approvals.
   d. A backup of archived data is taken to avoid data loss.
3. Main Processing Pipeline: After the above process is completed, the enrolment packet is passed onto the main processing pipeline. This includes the following stages at a high level:
   Automated Data Validation: Under this, various validations checks are done in CIDR for demographic data such as- Name & Address Validations, Language Validations, Pincode and Administrative Regions, Operator, Supervisor, Introducer Validations and other Data & Process Validation.a. Demographic De-duplication: It is primarily used to detect duplicates that accidentally submitted to the system. The main aim of demographic de-duplication is to filter out any fraudulent cases and reduce the number of trivial duplicates which goes for demographic de-duplication.b. Manual Quality Checks: Each enrolment packets are then sent for manual quality checks, where the quality check operators check the data for demographic and photo quality issues.c. Biometric De-duplication: After passing through all validations and demographic checks, the enrolment packet passes the biometric sub-systems for biometric de-duplication. To determine and ensure the level of accuracy and performance Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) from three different vendors is used. The ABIS system compares the resident’s biometrics with all the existing biometrics in their gallery to find duplicates if any.d. Manual Adjudication: If there is any duplicate identified by ABIS, they are sent to the adjudication module. The main purpose of using this module is to ensure that no resident’s enrolment is rejected due to any potential false matches of the ABIS systems.

Aadhaar Issuance

After determining the uniqueness of the resident, the Aadhaar number is allotted. Under this, the demographic data of residents is associated with the Aadhaar Number and which thereby can be used as an identity proof. The information related to the Aadhaar Number is also sent to the authentication systems so that the resident authentication can be performed successfully.

Aadhaar Letter Delivery

After the Aadhaar is generated, the data is then shared with the print partner. The printing partner is then responsible for printing the letter and gets it delivered to the logistics partner. Logistics Partner (India Post) is then responsible for the delivery of the physical letter to the resident.