We don’t want your Aadhaar data; any name acceptable: Facebook tells Indians

Agencies
December 28, 2017

New Delhi, Dec 28: Facebook has asserted it has no plans of "integration or authentication with Aadhaar" and is not linking the social media accounts to the 12-digit biometric identifier.

The clarification came in response to reports that indicated that Facebook was running a test, where it requested for people's Aadhaar information when they signed up for a Facebook account.

Facebook clarified that the test, which is now complete, included additional text explaining to users that if they used Aadhaar name it will help their family and friends recognise them.

"We are not collecting Aadhaar data and do not require people to enter their Aadhaar name when they sign up to Facebook," it noted in a blogpost.

Facebook said the goal of the test was to help new users understand how to sign up to Facebook with their real name and connect with their friends and family.

The move by Facebook is being seen as part of the company's efforts to check the increasing number of fake accounts on the platform. Facebook, however, did not comment on that.

It explained that at the point of account sign-up, users -- who were part of the test -- saw language that said "using the name on your Aadhaar card makes it easier for friends to recognise you".

"This is an optional prompt that we were testing. People were not required to enter the name on their Aadhaar card, and there is no integration or authentication with Aadhaar," Facebook added.

The US-based company said the test ran with a small number of users in India and has now concluded.

"...we currently have no plans to roll this test out further," it added.

India -- with over 240 million users -- is the second largest market for Facebook after the US.

On the other hand, with 119 crore residents already enrolled for the Aadhaar -- a unique 12-digit number backed by fingerprints, iris scans and certain demographic details -- the programme today is the world's largest biometric database.

The government is pushing for linking Aadhaar to a host of schemes and services such as mobile connections, PAN, and bank accounts to weed out ghost holders and check tax evasion.

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News Network
January 11,2020

Mysuru, Jan 11: Accusing the Congress and other opposition parties of pursuing “vote bank politics” on the Citizenship (Amendment ) Act (CAA), Kannada littérateur and Saraswathi Samman awardee S L Byrappa accused the party of misleading the people on the issue.

Speaking to media persons here on Friday, Mr Bhyrappa said that Congress was adopting the divide and rule policy of the British, who had created a rift between the Hindus and the Muslims to break their unity during the freedom struggle.

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News Network
July 19,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 19: A total of 4,120 new COVID-19 cases were reported from Karnataka on Sunday, taking the total number of 63,772 in the state, informed the state's health department.

Out of the total cases reported in the last 24 hours, 2,156 were reported from Bengaluru.
The total figure includes 39,370 active cases, 23,065 recoveries, and 91 deaths.

"Karnataka crossed the 10-lakh-tests milestone today. So far, we conducted 10,20,830 tests across 88 labs in the state and 35,834 tests today," Minister for Medical Education of Karnataka tweeted on Sunday. 

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News Network
May 9,2020

New Delhi, May 9: The Finance Ministry on Friday announced relief to those who have been facing difficulty with their residency status in India under section 6 of the Income-tax Act due to lockdown and suspension of international flights owing to COIVD-19 outbreak, as they have had to prolong their stay in India.

According to a Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) release, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today allowed discounting of prolonged stay period in India for the purpose of determining residency status after considering various representations received from people who had to prolong their stay in India due to lockdown and suspension of international flights.

They expressed concern that they will be required to file tax returns as Indian residents and not as NRIs after 120 days of stay.

The Finance Ministry stated that the lockdown continues during the financial year 2020-21 and it is not yet clear when international flight operations would resume, a circular excluding the period of stay of these individuals up to the date of resumption of international flight operations shall be issued for determination of the residential status for the financial year 2020-21.

A circular also said that in order to avoid genuine hardship in such cases, the CBDT has decided that for the purposes of determining the residential status under section 6 of the Act during the previous year 2019-20 in respect of an individual who has come to India on a visit before March 22, 2020 and:

(a) has been unable to leave India on or before March 31, 2020, his period of stay in India from March 22, 2020 to March 31, 2020 shall not be taken into account; or

(b) has been quarantined in India on account of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) on or after March 1, 2020 and has departed on an evacuation flight on or before March 31, 2020 or has been unable to leave India on or before March 31, 2020, his period of stay from the beginning of his quarantine to his date of departure or March 31, 2020, as the case may be, shall not be taken into account; or

(c) has departed on an evacuation flight on or before March 31, 2020, his period of stay in India from March 22, 2020 to his date of departure shall not be taken into account."

The release said there are number of individuals who had come on a visit to India during the previous year 2019-20 for a particular duration and intended to leave India before the end of the previous year for maintaining their status as non-resident or not ordinary resident in India.

"However, due to declaration of the lockdown and suspension of international flights owing to outbreak of COVID-19, they are required to prolong their stay in India. The status of an individual whether he is resident in India or a non-resident or not ordinarily resident, is dependent, inter-alia, on the period for which the person is in India during a year," it said.

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