Govt to carry out Aadhaar authentication of prisoners, their visitors

New Delhi: All prisoners and their visitors will now have to undergo Aadhaar authentication following the central government's fresh initiative to strengthen the safe and secure custody of the inmates besides ensuring them delivery of entitled benefits.

In a communication to all state governments and union territory administrations, the Union Home Ministry has conveyed that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and ePrisons team have prepared a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) document for Aadhaar linking or Aadhaar authentication of prison inmates and their visitors with ePrisons platform for the convenience of all prison authorities.

"State/UT prison authorities are accordingly requested to make use of the facility of Aadhaar authentication of prison inmates and the visitors to prison inmates with a view to strengthening the safe and secure custody of inmates and at the same time ensuring the delivery of entitled benefits of Aadhaar to prison inmates," it said.

However, the home ministry said that while doing this, the prison authorities shall adhere to all relevant guidelines on use of Aadhaar authentication as laid down by the central government from time to time.

Early this year, the union home ministry was authorised to carry out Aadhaar authentication of prison inmates and their visitors.

The ministry accordingly issued the requisite gazette notifications on March 6 and September 29 respectively, notifying that the prison departments of the states and union territories, are allowed to perform Aadhaar authentication of prison inmates and their visitors.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC)/ePrisons has been registered as a sub authentication user agency for facilitating the process of Aadhaar authentication of prison inmates.