, ET Bureau|
The DoT, in its
notification issued Friday, has also said that telcos should prepare to
adopt an alternate digital process which envisages a customer
acquisition form (CAF) be embedded with live photographs of subscribers
and scanned images of a proof of address and identify, which will make
the entire process paperless.
“....all licensees are to discontinue the use of Aadhaar eKYC (electronic know your customer)
service of Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) both for
verification as well as for issuing new mobile connections,” said the
Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Friday.
The operators have been
given time till November 5 to comply with the order and report their
compliance. The carriers also need to offer the proof of concepts of the
alternate digital means of customer verification by November 5 for
approval.
The DoT though has directed
that all operators need to stop using the Aadhaar-based e-KYC for
re-verification its existing subscribers with immediate effect.
“Meanwhile this (alternate
digital) process can be implemented provisionally by all TSPs (telecom
service providers). Any modification which may be required in this
process by the government shall be carried out within a period of 30 days,” the DoT said.
DoT’s orders come after the
Supreme Court order of September 26 that struck down the use of Aadhaar
by private entities for digital authentication. The DoT’s direction will
deal a blow to the telcos who were hoping that the government would
continue to push Aadhaar for digital verification, on a voluntary basis,
to allow saving of time and costs.
Analysts say Reliance Jio
may be more affected that its rivals, as it could slow the pace of
subscriber additions, potentially delaying the company’s plan to acquire
a 50% revenue market share. The Mukesh Ambani-owned telco has been
adding several times more subscribers every month than its rivals Bharti
Airtel and Vodafone Idea. Also, the consistently higher monthly
additions may make verification costs greater for Jio than Vodafone Idea
or Airtel.
“Shift from eKYC may
increase the on-boarding time of customers as well as the acquisition
costs. In the near term, modest slowdown in subscriber growth remains
possibility but should only be short lived,” said HDFC Securities, in a
recent note.
Until the apex court struck
down the use of Aadhaar biometric data by private entities, telcos had
onboarded more than 90% of new subscribers using the unique ID due to
factors led by convenience, although some people avoided furnishing the
biometric ID owing to fears of data leakage.
The DoT letter also states
that the telcos need to remove the Aadhaar-based column in their
customer acquisition forms and can use the 12-digit unique identity code
as an identity proof like other identification proof, without the
authentication feature, on a voluntary basis.
DoT had received legal
opinion that carriers have no other option unless the government amends
the law to allow Aadhaar-based biometric authentication, said senior
officials.
“Operators will be unhappy,
but we are left with no choice. Customers will now have to submit their
documents, which will be digitally scanned and submitted to the telcos’
database. It will be back to the earlier days,” said a senior DoT
official, who did not wish to be identified.
In earlier meetings with the
DoT and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which
administers Aadhaar, telcos had stressed that Aadhaar was the most
secure way of digital verification and had requested regulators to find
ways to bring it back.
More than 500 mn people, or about half of India’s mobile phone users, have linked their Aadhaar to their phone number.
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