The government has amended Aadhaar regulations, stating that supporting documents may be updated “at least once” after 10 years from the date of enrolment.

The updation would ensure “continued accuracy” of Aadhaar-related information in the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR), a gazette notification issued by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) said.

“Aadhaar number holders may, on completion of every 10 years from the date of enrolment for Aadhaar, update their supporting documents, at least once, by submitting Proof of Identity (POI) and Proof of Address (POA) documents... so as to ensure continued accuracy of their information in the CIDR, in such a manner as may be specified by the Authority from time to time,” it said.

The changes have been made by tweaking the Aadhaar (Enrollment and Update) Regulations. As per the regulations earlier, residents who were older than 15 years at the time of enrollment were “recommended to update their biometric data every 10 years.”

The updation drive initiated now for Aadhaar issued 10 years ago, relates to the updating of demographic information and does not involve biometric updates. A call for the biometric update will be considered if and when the need arises.

Last month, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had urged people to update identification and residence proof documents, if they were issued the unique ID more than 10 years back but had not updated their details since then.

New feature

Accordingly, to provide facilities to Aadhaar holders in this regard, the UIDAI has developed a new feature called “update document.” This feature can be accessed online through the myAadhaar portal, and myAadhaar app or residents can visit any Aadhaar enrolment centre to avail of the facility.

The new feature permits Aadhaar holders to revalidate details by updating the POI (containing name and photo) and POA (containing name and address) documents.

While 134 crore Aadhaar numbers have been issued till date, just how many Aadhaar holders will have to update their information after UIDAI’s latest move is not known immediately. Last year, about 16 crore updates of various kinds took place.

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