Govt Proposes Plan For 'One Digital ID' To Link PAN, Aadhar, Passport: Report

The umbrella digital identity is meant to “empower” the citizen by “putting her in control of these identities and providing her the option of choosing which one to use for what purpose.”

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New Delhi: The Central Government on a replacement of Aadhaar cards, one which will interlink a citizen’s multiple digital IDs — from PAN, Aadhaar, driving licence and even passport numbers, reported Indian Express.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has proposed a new model of “Federated Digital Identities” which can interlink, store, and access multiple IDs via one unique ID.

According to the proposal reviewed by the Indian Express and it suggested that the umbrella digital identity will “empower” the citizen by “putting her in control of these identities and providing her the option of choosing which one to use for what purpose.”

The proposal will be launched into the public domain for comments by February 27. The “federated digital identity” would also serve as a key to a registry where all different state and Central identities could be stored. Citizens can use the digital ID “for availing other third-party services through authentication and consented eKYC” the report stated. All digital identities can be interlinked to eliminate repeat verification.

The proposal has been moved under India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) 2.0, it was first designed in 2017 “with a view to enabling alignment of the IT developments with the business vision of government organisations", Indian Express quoted the proposal. However, the frame worked has since been updated. 

InDEA 2.0 version proposes a framework that enables public as well as private sector companies to build and design IT architecture “that can span beyond their organisational boundaries” to deliver “holistic and integrated services to the customers”.

To carry the proposal forward, the government has proposed a redesigned framework in which the most comprehensive work will be done by the Centre 'or by ministries that deal with concurrent or state matters,' according to the government. The 'state architecture pattern' will be handled by state governments, while the 'InDEA Lite architectural pattern' will be handled by both state and federal governments.