Startups weigh government nod to use Aadhaar KYC for gig workers

Time of India

6 hours ago

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Food delivery, ecommerce, ride hailers and other consumer-facing startups are evaluating applying to the union government for an explicit approval for Aadhaar authentication as they struggle to verify their gig workers via simple Aadhaar eKYC processes , industry insiders said.This comes on the back of the ministry of electronics and information technology's (Meity) crackdown on all forms of unauthorised use of Aadhaar-based digital onboarding services ET reported this development on June 9.Meity even blocked access to the websites of startups like Zoop, Surepass, Digitap and others to arrest unauthorised access to government databases, ET had reported.Service providers like Protean eGov Technologies can offer access to the Aadhaar rails through a secured channel once the concerned ministry clears the proposal from these private companies.'We now have the capability to offer Aadhaar authentication services to private platforms, particularly relevant for specific use-cases, such as verifying gig workers at scale, where the trust built into Aadhaar can significantly strengthen KYC processes,' said Bertram D'Souza, chief product and innovation officer at Protean eGov Technologies.'We are already in multiple conversations with players in the tech industry. However, it is important to note that ministry approval remains a required part of the process,' he added.On January 31, the government issued a notification allowing private companies to use Aadhaar rails for specific purposes, but only after an explicit clearance from the concerned government department. It is through this route that startups are hoping to impress upon the government the need for them to use the Aadhaar database for authentication of their delivery personnel and frontline workers.While regulated entities are allowed access to the Aadhaar database, the challenge lies with unregulated entities using secured channels for authentication of any user, specifically used to onboard blue-collar workers.Wriju Ray, chief business officer, Idfy, a Mumbai-based identity verification startup, explained that to verify their delivery executives, some e-commerce players were using the screens of the 'offline' Aadhaar website through unauthorised means, a practice deemed to be illegal by Meity and UIDAI.'We are now in talks with these e-commerce players to migrate them to Digilocker-based verification of Aadhaar or a simple redirection-based process to verify the delivery executive against offline Aadhaar,' Ray added.A senior executive at another identity verification startup pointed out that most gig workers are onboarded through an assisted channel and unless the concerned person has Digilocker on his or her phone, the verification journey becomes complicated.If Aadhaar rails can be accessed through due permission of the authorities, then identity verification startups can operate as technology service providers acting as a bridge between tech startups and the likes of Protean and drive these verifications through a consent mechanism.In its March quarter presentation Protean eGov reported that it has processed around 327.5 crore Aadhaar-based authentication services since it started. In FY25 alone the publicly listed company said it processed fifty-six crore such transactions with around 10 lakh authorised every day. Protean does around 12 lakh eKYC transactions daily. According to data from UIDAI, in June alone 1.1 billion authentication services and 287 million eKYC services were undertaken through Aadhaar.