Now Reading: India drops shared biometric database from telecom rules
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India drops shared biometric database from telecom rules
India has scrapped plans for a centralised biometric database for telecom users. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) notified the final Telecommunications (User Identification) Rules, 2026 last Friday, dropping the Biometric Identity Verification…
India has scrapped plans for a centralised biometric database for telecom users. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) notified the final Telecommunications (User Identification) Rules, 2026 last Friday, dropping the Biometric Identity Verification System (BIVS) that was proposed in the draft rules from September. BIVS would have assigned a unique ID to every telecom customer and allowed cross-company identity matching.
Instead, operators including Airtel, Jio, Vodafone Idea and BSNL must verify users through e-KYC with UIDAI for Aadhaar holders, or D-KYC involving live face capture and document scans for others. Mandatory biometric checks before disconnection and an alert system for SIM changes are also required. Civil society groups had criticised the earlier proposal as an unnecessary parallel collection of biometric data lacking Aadhaar Act safeguards.
From August 23, the DoT will use its Digital Intelligence Platform to pull subscriber data and photos from all operators to identify individuals exceeding the permitted number of mobile connections. Companies have three to six months to implement the new systems.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The retreat from BIVS is a significant concession after the consultation process. India's telecom subscriber base exceeds 1.2 billion, and any database of that scale would have been a prime target for breaches, as seen with the Aadhaar-linked data leaks of recent years. The UIDAI framework, under the Aadhaar Act of 2016, already restricts how biometric data can be stored and shared, a constraint the proposed BIVS would have bypassed. The new Digital Intelligence Platform appears to replicate some of BIVS's centralising logic, but without storing a new biometric repository. How the DoT enforces the cap on SIM holdings without creating a de facto central watchlist will determine whether privacy concerns resurface. The three-month implementation deadline for operators runs to mid-June 2026.
Source: biometricupdate.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
