A day after news reports said Facebook was asking some new users in India to enter their names as they are on their Aadhaar cards, the social media giant clarified that it was only conducting a test and not asking for people’s Aadhaar information.
“Some have interpreted this test as a request for people’s Aadhaar information when you sign up for a Facebook account. This is not correct,” Facebook Product Manager Taichi Hoshino said on Thursday.
Hoshino said that during the test, Facebook added a sentence on the account sign-up page to explain that using the Aadhaar name will help family and friends find the user easily. “We are not collecting Aadhaar data and do not require people to enter their Aadhaar name when they sign up to Facebook,” he clarified.
Facebook said that it aimed to help users understand how to sign up on Facebook with their real name. Hoshino also clarified that “there is no integration or authentication with Aadhaar”.
The social media company is known for a strict “real names” policy, which has often created controversies globally for being discriminatory to various ethnic groups and transgender people.
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