The Indian government is reportedly pushing global technology giants to embed the Aadhaar programme with their devices. This promotion of the biometric identity scheme is not being well-received with the firms, representatives from which attended a meeting with government officials to discuss the integration, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
Chief of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Ajay Bushan Pandey, who convened the gathering, said executives from Microsoft Corp, Samsung Electronics Co and Google were non-committal to the proposal. Officials said Apple's representative was absent at the meeting. Pandey told the representatives to convince their company headquarters to put the Aadhaar-registered devices proposal on track.
Global technology firms may have restricted access to the Indian market if they do not comply with India's proposal, particularly as their Indian counterparts like Flipkart and Snapdeal have incorporated the programme in the payment processes. So far, Samsung is the only international device manufacturer with an Aadhaar-friendly device, and negotiations between Microsoft and the government over linking Skype with the Aadhaar database to enable call authentication is underway.
Officials said technology giants like Apple and Google, who have resisted similar requests by the United States administration, will stand their ground on the issue and oppose opening up their phones and operating systems to Aadhaar. Their hesitation stems from concerns that linking with the programme could put their inbuilt security at risk and allow customer data to be mined for ads. The Aadhaar programme has faced stiff opposition that claims it violates citizens' privacy and could hurt national security efforts.
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