Awareness In terms of using Aadhaar to access services, there was a similar pattern: some new exception handling processes have been introduced, but few people were aware of them or successfully used them. Most (84%) PDS users knew about at least Children's Access to Education and Welfare 3.2 Children's Access to Education and Welfare one alternative in case fingerprint authentication failed; however, that alternative was predominantly to use the traditional register or to ask a different household Children’s access to education and welfare is legally protected. member to authenticate. Few people knew about digital alternatives, such as OTP Nevertheless, a family member’s Aadhaar is required for most authentication (5% of PDS users).72 Similarly, most (79%) DBT recipients understood school enrolments, and families report that children miss out on that a bank form they had filled out determined into which account their payments welfare benefits for Aadhaar-related reasons. would go, but 9% of beneficiaries still experienced misdirected payments. In general, residents were not yet using newer digital features of Aadhaar, which could improve their experience (see Figure 11). Many newer features and troubleshooting tools use technology beyond biometric scanning, e.g., QR code Even after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling, many families still need to provide Aadhaar for children’s school enrolment scanning in case of failure or unavailability of biometric authentication or biometric locking on the mAadhaar app. Such features will become more important and In many states, families found that providing Aadhaar was mandatory (see Figure 19).76 Thirteen per cent of school-age children experienced necessary as the government’s digital transformation accelerates. If awareness for school enrolment even after the Supreme Court held that Aadhaar a delay in school enrolment that was related to providing Aadhaar. remains low, Aadhaar holders will miss out on using them. should not infringe on the right to education.73 After the ruling, the In addition, 0.5% of school-age children could not enrol in school due majority of school-age children74 (73%), were still required to provide to Aadhaar related reasons—an estimated 1 million children, or one- Aadhaar for school enrolment.75 In five states, providing Aadhaar fourth of all unenrolled children whose parents wished to enrol them. during enrolment was mandatory for more than 75% of children stories behind the data Figure 19: Share of children for whom providing Aadhaar for school Figure 20: Share of children who have ever missed a meal under enrolment was mandatory after the Supreme Court judgement the Mid-Day Meal Scheme due to an Aadhaar-related reason77 % of children across respondents' households % of children across respondents’ households “The public shouts at us, they ask us why the update is not working, but how do we know? The rules keep changing, they are not advertised properly, and the website has old information.” Aadhaar enrolment and update centre employee, Karnataka 73% National average 8% National average Source: SoA Human Centred Design Research 2019 71. 72. 70. 31 The Supreme Court (2018) ruled that Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for private-sector services like opening a bank account or obtaining a SIM card. 73. 74. We defined facing problems as the respondent requiring more than one attempt to enrol or update. This may partly be explained by different state policies and implementation plans. Not all states use all exception handling mechanisms. Supreme Court of India. Judgment no. 35071/ 2012, 26 Sep 2018. We define school-age as 6 to 14 years of age - in line with age group covered by RTE. 32