After mobile numbers, tax documents, bank accounts, it looks like you may soon need Aadhaar to fly.
According to a Times of India report, IT vendor Wipro has been roped in by the government to develop a plan for airlines to start accepting thumb prints as identification to fly on domestic airlines.
Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told TOI that passenger biometrics would be used as the time of booking tickets and would aid convenience.
"Once they reach the airport they are flying out of, flyers can just keep their thumb on touch pad at entry point. Once inside, a similar process can be repeated at other places like check-in," Mohapatra said.
The latest move comes despite concerns about Aadhaar's security and privacy provisions. Last week, UIDAI, the Aadhaar issuing authority, launched a police complaint in connection to two separate Aadhaar applications that were found to have the same biometric information. There have been at least two other security incidents in the past couple of months, prompting action by authorities.
The Supreme Court in its recent ruling clarified that Aadhaar is not mandatory for welfare benefits, but for non-welfare schemes such as taxes, government can make Aadhaar compulsory.