Social Media Accounts To Be Linked with Aadhar Id?

In order to check the menace of Fake News on Social Media, the Union Government is contemplating to make it mandatory to link all Social Media accounts with Aadhar Number. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) seeking its opinion on linking social media accounts to the Aadhaar card numbers.

The last month, the Supreme Court has asked the Union Government’s view on the matter. UIDAI which handles Aadhar is yet to give its view on this issue. However, this would require a change in the laws as currently the unique identity number can only be linked to government schemes and subsidies which are funded from the Consolidated Fund of India.

However, the law has been recently amended to allow banking institutions and telecom companies to use Aadhaar-based bio-metric identification to carry out Know Your Customer (KYC) process, with due consent from the customers. So, if the government wishes, it can carry out this process by amending the law.

If this is really implemented, Fake Social Media Accounts, Bots which are largely responsible for Fake news can be eradicated. Moreover, this move will also impact the political parties which are using fake accounts to push their agenda into the Social Media via forced Trends.