The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016. It functions under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
The UIDAI was initially created on January 28, 2009, as an attached office under the Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog). Its core objective was to issue a unique 12-digit identification number, called Aadhaar, to all residents of India to eliminate duplicate and fake identities and ensure the targeted delivery of government subsidies and services. It gained its statutory status on July 12, 2016, with the enactment of the Aadhaar Act.
The UIDAI's mechanism involves collecting a resident's demographic and biometric data, which includes a photograph, ten fingerprints, and two iris scans, and storing it in a Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR). The Aadhaar Act, 2016 provides the legal framework, making the use of Aadhaar mandatory only for subsidies, benefits, and services funded from the Consolidated Fund of India. A key provision is that the core biometric information cannot be shared with anyone for any reason.
The UIDAI's legal framework is closely connected to the landmark Supreme Court judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors., delivered on September 26, 2018. The 4:1 majority upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, but struck down provisions like Section 57, which allowed private entities to use Aadhaar for identity authentication. The ratio was that the Act was constitutional as it served the legitimate state aim of targeted welfare delivery, but its use must be limited to the disbursement of welfare benefits.
The Aadhaar Act has been amended, notably by the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019, which allowed the voluntary use of Aadhaar for opening bank accounts and obtaining mobile connections. More recently, the UIDAI's regulations have changed, with the Aadhaar (Authentication and Offline Verification) Amendment Regulations, 2025, legally recognizing face authentication as a valid mode of verification. Furthermore, the Aadhaar (Enrolment and Update) First Amendment Regulations, 2025, codified the elimination of multiple Aadhaar numbers, retaining only the earliest one with biometric information (Regulation 27).