Daijiworld Media Network

New Delhi, Dec 20: Telecom companies or banks insisting on Aadhaar as sole identification document could be charged with a penalty of Rs 1 crore and the jail sentence from 3 to 10 years for staff concerned.

The Union Cabinet on Monday cleared the amendments which propose the penalties for the violations and seek to give Aadhaar holders an option to use their unique ID.

Attempts to misuse Aadhaar data will invite a penalty of Rs 50 lac and jail term of 10 years. The stringent measures are being adopted by the government, as it intends to allow private firms to do Aadhaar-based authentication. However, some Telecom agencies were repeatedly troubling customers asking them to link Aadhaar. There were cases that some firms saved the ID details on computers to use it for commercial gains.

The amendments also state that a fine of Rs 10,000 can be levied and a three-year prison term if a firm does not obtain consent for authentication. The same clause applies for those doing offline verification using QR codes.

In case an ID or photo is published with authorization, then a penalty ranging between Rs 10,000 to 1 lac can be charged.

As per sources, amendments to Indian Telegraph Act and PMLA are done taking the Supreme Court ruling on Aadhaar into consideration. The apex court had ruled that Aadhaar can be compulsory only while obtaining welfare services using public funds.

“The amendments require entities performing authentication to comply with standards of privacy in keeping with the law to be passed by Parliament,” the source said.