In September 2018, the Supreme Court had set aside a circular issued by the DoT for re-verification of existing mobile subscribers through the Aadhaar-based e-KYC process, following which the department had withdrawn the facility.

But the government in July 2019 passed the Aadhaar Amendment Bill to allow use of the facility by private entities like banks and telcos on a voluntary basis.

Kochhar said Aadhaar-based e-KYC process is a secure and robust process since both the subscriber and point of sale (PoS) agent are authenticated successfully on a real-time basis to ensure user traceability.

“The robustness of Aadhaar eliminates the possibilities of forgery and identity theft while, at the same time, ensuring complete transparency and traceability of both the telecom subscriber as well as the point of sale,” he said.

The department has mandated that for the identification purpose, neither core biometric information nor the Aadhaar number of the person shall be stored by the telco or its authorised PoS agent. https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com