Getting Aadhaar: Enrolment And Updates stories behind the data “Going to the bank for update is hard with children. Banks are in the city and only service 15-20 people a day, so we have to go early in the morning and wait to get a token, but the kids have school in the village.” Pavithra S, Provision & Xerox Store Owner, Karnataka Using Aadhaar 2.3 Using Aadhaar Aadhaar is becoming India’s default ID. Those who have Aadhaar Overall, residents say that using Aadhaar is quite easy and use it regularly and across multiple services; this is true whether or has improved the delivery of some welfare benefits and not Aadhaar is mandatory for the service, and whether the service private sector services. Still, some people face challenges is provided by the government or the private sector. and experience exclusion or denial of services as a result While she was busy working at her store, Pavithra would send her children of difficulties with Aadhaar. Marginalised groups, such as to get rations. However, recurring issues with their biometrics at the ration Residents primarily use Aadhaar in analogue form—by provid- homeless and third-gender people, are disproportionately shop required Pavithra to take them to the nearest town to update their ing the card or a photocopy. Very few people use newer digital represented among those who face Aadhaar-related exclusion biometrics, which meant closing her shop while she was away. Aadhaar features; however, people across India have been slow to from services. adopt other digital services as well. Aadhaar update facilities in the villages we visited were scarce, which meant that people in rural areas, like Pavithra, had to spend time and sometimes sacrifice their daily wage in order to update. Private agents added to the cost, but some felt it was worth paying for the ease and Residents use Aadhaar regularly and across a wide range of welfare and non-welfare services convenience that they provided. Source: SoA Human Centred Design Research 2019 KEY FACTS Across all states, people were using Aadhaar regularly. The For some services, almost all users of the service had provided majority of people who had Aadhaar (68%) used it at least once identification through Aadhaar at least once. These included not in the past three months and the average Aadhaar holder used only major welfare programmes (LPG subsidy, PDS rations) for it around once per month. 33 Residents used Aadhaar for a range which providing Aadhaar was mandatory, but also SIM cards, and of both welfare and non-welfare services. The most common use financial services, such as bank accounts, for which an Aadhaar cases were bank account (94% of Aadhaar holders), LPG subsidy mandate was briefly in place, but then removed (see Figure 10). 35 (86%), PDS rations (82%), and SIM card (55%). 34 35% of Aadhaar 1. 95% of adults in India have Aadhaar 2. 95% of adults who do not have Aadhaar say they want the ID holders used it to obtain another ID. Individuals with Aadhaar were more likely to have direct benefit transfers (DBT) for welfare and subsidies (47%, compared to 20% 3. The largest groups of people who do not yet have Aadhaar are children, amongst those without Aadhaar). and people in Assam and Meghalaya 4. The most marginalised populations are less likely to have Aadhaar and Figure 10: Share of service users who have provided Aadhaar more likely to have errors in their Aadhaar information (e.g., people who % of respondents who receive the service and have Aadhaar are homeless or identify as third-gender) 5. 4% of people have an error on their Aadhaar card. 15% of people report an error in their mobile number 6. 33% of people who tried to update found the process difficult; one in five did not succeed (N = 8,308) (N = 1,423) (N = 2,795) (N = 11,953) (N = 3,331) (N = 450) (N = 2,767) Aadhaar can be mandatory (N = 10,096) N = 11,923 (N = 1,791) (N = 1,564) (N = 604) Aadhaar was mandatory 33. 34. 15 Estimate based on the average of minimum and maximum possible frequencies of using different features of Aadhaar. SoA pulse survey 2019. Accessing rations typically requires repeated (typically monthly) use of Aadhaar authentication, whereas bank accounts, LPG subsidies or SIM cards require limited (typically one-time) usage of Aadhaar. (N = 16,201) (N = 16,201) (N = 16,201) (N = 16,201) Aadhaar is voluntary 35. SoA pulse survey 2019. We define mandatory according to our understanding of the 2018 Supreme Court ruling on Aadhaar: Aadhaar can be made mandatory for targeted government welfare benefits and can no longer be made mandatory for private-sector service delivery. We understand that statewise implementation varies: some states have not implemented mandates for linking with Aadhaar for certain services, and/or they have made efforts to reduce Aadhaar-related exclusion from welfare services. We discuss de facto mandates for non-welfare benefits in a later chapter. For simplicity, this definition hinges on whether providing Aadhaar can be made mandatory in principle. 16