New Delhi, July 1: The Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) on Saturday confirmed that virtual ID mechanism that could be used in place of Aadhar number had started operating with its various authentication agencies. The mechanism will allow to generate a 16-digit number that can be shared with telecom companies and other service providers. It will prevent the customers from disclosing their 12-digit Aadhar number for completing electronic know-your-customer (eKYC) formalities.

The move will strengthen people’s privacy. In January this year, the UIDAI had announced the plan to introduce virtual ID (VID) feature. Banks have time till August 31 to make this mechanism operational. UIDAI also announced that VID along with facial recognition would be operational from August. According to a report published in The Times of India, So, Sunday onwards, there will be a disincentive of 20 paise per transaction. This charge will be waived if the service provider is ready to migrate to the new system by July 31.

In a statement on Saturday, UIDAI said virtual ID (VID) system is operational with authentication user agencies (AUAs) which have migrated to VID and UID token using the software (Auth API 2.5 and e-KYC API 2.5) that supports new VID capability. UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said, "It has been observed that a number of AUAs have already migrated to the production environment using APIs 2.5 for VID implementation and most of the remaining AUAs have tested VID and UID Token in pre-production environment APIs 2.5. We are requesting with these agencies to fully migrate to production environment by the stipulated date".

According to reports, around 121 crore people have been issued Aadhaar numbers so far. Yesterday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had extended the deadline to March 31, 2019. It is the fifth extension given by the government. Earlier, CBDT had fixed June 30, 2018, as the last date for linking Aadhaar card with PAN.

(With inputs from PTI)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 01, 2018 10:48 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).