Vodafone India Ltd., one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, today launched a PoC for use of Aadhaar as valid PoI and PoA using the Aadhaar online authentication procedure in Andhra Pradesh. The company is now the official Authentication Service Agency (ASA) and Authentication User Agency (AUA) of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and is all set to issue new connections in Andhra Pradesh using just the Aadhaar letters as per the Department of Telecom’s (DoT) directive.
The service is initially being launched at Vodafone Stores at S.P. Road in Hyderabad and Bandar Road at Vijayawada.
With that Vodafone became first operator to launch Proof of Concept formally for UIDAI.
The launch function was attended by top dignitaries of Government of India from DoT, UIDAI, TRAI, and the TERM cells of Andhra Pradesh along with key officials from Vodafone India.
This initiative will ensure instant validation and activation of prepaid and postpaid connections, thus making it convenient for customers and saving time. The customers will not have to arrange for separate Proof of Identity or Proof of Address for getting a new Vodafone connection. The entire process was demonstrated to the gathering at the PoC launch event.
Speaking on the occasion, T V Ramachandran, Resident Director –Regulatory Affairs & Government Relations, Vodafone India said, “We are very proud and delighted to be the chosen ASA for rolling out this unique initiative as per DoT’s directive. This will make the process of getting a new connection easy for our customers and reduce the time involved in activating the number. We, at Vodafone, believe in delivering secure and differentiated service to our customers and this partnership is one more step in this direction.”
A customer can just walk in with the Aadhaar letter into the above mentioned Vodafone stores and post validation and identification can walk out with an active Vodafone connection. The bar code on the Aadhaar letter will be scanned and after authentication the customer will be required to establish identity in real time with a biometric authentication. Once this is done, a message authenticating the customer will be sent from UIDAI which will be used as proof of verification. The entire process will just take a few minutes.
An ASA (Authentication Service Agency) is an entity plays the role of enabling intermediaries and transmits authentication requests to the Central Identity Data Repository (CIDR) for UIDAI. An ASA needs to ensure compliance of authentication related operations (processes, technology, security, etc.) to UIDAI’s standards and specifications. An AUA (Authentication User Agency) is any legal entity registered in India that seeks to use Aadhaar authentication for its services. An AUA is the principal agency that sends authentication requests to enable its services / business functions.
