Former, current UIDAI officials part of private firms that use Aadhaar services for profit: Report
Several former and current UIDAI officials are launching companies or funding start-ups that offer Aadhaar-based services and products for a fee.
Several executives, either currently working with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or employed with the agency that collects Aadhaar data previously, are launching companies or funding start-ups that offer Aadhaar-based services and products for a fee, a media report has said.
According to a report by the Indian Express, Vivek Raghavan, Chief Product Manager of UIDAI, Srikanth Nadhamuni, a former Head of Technology at UIDAI, and Sanjay Jain, former Chief Product Manager of UIDAI, together founded Khosla Labs in September 2012.
Khosla Labs, which has investor and entrepreneur Vinod Khosla as its chairman, launched Aadhaar Bridge, a licensed Authentication User Agency (AUA), for Aadhaar-based authentication services in 2015.
An AUA is an agency authorised by UIDAI to use Aadhaar authentication for its services. An AUA can verify its own customers or can offer this as a service to other companies. A private company can be licensed as either AUA or Authentication Service Agency, ASA or KUA, (Know your Client User Agency).
Aadhaar Bridge is one of the 308 AUAs licensed by UIDAI as of August 31, 2017. Most of the AUAs are Central and state government bodies, banks, insurance companies or telecom operators.
Aadhaar Bridge has listed Hero Motors, Samsung, Ola, Hinduja Leyland Finance, among its over 250 clients.
According to UIDAI’s website, Raghavan is on a sabbatical with UIDAI as its chief product manager with a tenure until the end of February 2018. He also served as a volunteer at the UIDAI from October 2010 to June 2013.
Raghavan's LinkedIn profile claims that he is currently "Chief Product Manager and Biometric Architect" at the UIDAI and is responsible for “the design and roll out of the technology platform for Aadhaar, the world’s largest identity program”.
On his LinkedIn profile, Raghavan says that he served as "Entreprenuer in Residence" at the Khosla Labs and quit the company in June 2013. However, documents with Registrar of Companies show that Raghavan continued to be a director at Khosla Labs for three more years after he became UIDAI’s Chief Product Manager in July 2013 and resigned as director only in September 2016, the Indian Express report says.
The report says that the Articles of Association for Khosla Labs shows that Raghavan, Jain and Nadhamuni were the three promoters of the company which is 99.9 per cent owned by another Mauritius-based company also called Khosla Labs.
Nadhamuni quit the UIDAI in September 2012 and promptly joined Khosla Labs as its CEO and still serves at the position. On his LinkedIn profile, Nadhamuni states that he “continues to be adviser” to UIDAI.
Sanjay Jain says on his LinkedIn profile that he quit Khosla Labs in June 2015. The website of Khosla Labs, however, mentions that Jain is part of the company.
Arun Maira, a member of now defunct Planning Commission under which the UIDAI was established, said that such links raise issues of conflict of interest.
He said there should be consultations between the private sector and the government but the people from the private sector cannot be developing regulations and schemes.
“You cannot have any one of the players more connected into the regulation space than the others are,” Maira was quoted as saying by the daily.
Nadhamuni denied charges of conflict of interest.
“There is no conflict of interest in Khosla Labs providing AUA services starting (March) 2015, about two and a half years after we had quit UIDAI,” he said.
Nadhamuni claimed that Khosla Labs “went through the due process of applying for a license with the UIDAI like all applicants.”
Vikash Shukla, UIDAI’s general manager for media, said, “UIDAI has established a nationwide Aadhaar authentication platform which can be used by public as well as private agencies subject to the provisions of the Aadhaar Act and Regulations. Anyone meeting the condition of ‘requesting entity’ prescribed under the Aadhaar Act and Regulations are entitled to use this authentication platform.”