In a relief to mobile users, the Centre has instructed telecom service providers to tweak their systems and networks to enable the use of Virtual IDs (VIDs) instead of Aadhaar, and migrate to the ‘limited KYC’ mechanism.

This means users can choose to give the telco either their Aadhaar number or the VID generated by the UIDAI, which authenticates their name and address details from the back-end.

July 1 rollout

The latest circular from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) comes ahead of the July 1 rollout of the VID system. The DoT said that once it is implemented, telcos should give subscribers the option of submitting either their Aadhaar number or VID.

“The licensee shall display the Aadhaar number or Virtual ID in masked form at the POS terminal and shall ensure that...(these are) not be stored anywhere in its systems/ applications/ database,” said the circular.

The licensee should then follow the e-KYC process using the UID token to ascertain the uniqueness of the subscriber and store it along with the other fields in the subscriber’s database, it added.

The DoT further said that in the case of existing subscribers, only replacement of Aadhaar number with UID tokens is permitted, that too as a one-time measure. The telco cannot alter the other data in the subscriber’s database.

“If any incident of alteration/manipulation of any other field of subscriber database comes to the notice of this Department, such connection shall be treated as pre-activated and penal action shall be taken,” the circular said.

The telcos will also be required to make changes in their systems to replace the Aadhaar numbers of existing subscribers in their databases with UID tokens. Further, it has removed Aadhaar number from the list of parameters required in the subscriber database, and introduced the 72-character UID token in its stead.

The Cellular Operators Association of India praised the DoT decision, calling it another step to ensure the privacy of customers.

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