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Should Aadhaar be used as KYC for social media accounts? We have recently seen a debate on this question with even the courts hearing arguments in favour and against such a move. The case began in Madras High Court and later Facebook moved the SC seeking transfer of the petition to the Apex court. The original petition was filed in July, 2018 and sought linking of Aadhaar numbers with user accounts to further traceability of messages. Before we try and answer this question, we need to first understand the differences between the different types of data on social media and messaging platforms. If a crime happens on an end to end cryptographically secure channel like WhatsApp the police may request the following from the provider to help solve the case: 1.Identity data: Phone numbers of the accused. Names and addresses of the accused. 2.Metadata: Sender, receiver(s), time, size of message, flag identifying a forwarded messages, delivery status, read status, etc. 3.Payloa...

Just 230 million PAN card holders -- over half of the total PAN card holders -- have so far linked their cards with biometric ID Aadhaar, even as the deadline to link the two comes to an end on March 31, 2019. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra said the Income Tax department has so far issued 420 million permanent account numbers (PAN), of which 230 million have been linked with Aadhaar. Supreme Court has made it mandatory that Income Tax returns will be filed with Aadhaar and the last date for linking PAN with Aadhaar is March 31. "By linking with Aadhaar, We will know whether there are any duplicate PAN or not. And there are certain duplicate PANs... If it is not linked, we may cancel the PAN also," Chandra said while addressing an Assocham event. The Supreme Court in September last year had declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid. ALSO READ: Aadhaar-PAN linking mandatory for filing inco...

The Supreme Court has said that linkage of PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory for filing of Income Tax returns . A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said the top court has already decided the matter and upheld the section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. The court's direction came on an appeal filed by the Centre against a Delhi High Court order allowing two persons, Shreya Sen and Jayshree Satpute, to file Income Tax returns for 2018-19 without linking their Aadhaar and PAN numbers. "The aforesaid order was passed by the High Court having regard to the fact that the matter was pending consideration in this Court. Thereafter, this Court has decided the matter and upheld the vires of section 139AA of the Income Tax Act . In view thereof, linkage of PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory," the bench said. The top court noted that with regard to Assessment Year 2018-19, it has been informed that the two petitioners had filed the Income Tax returns in ter...

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman R S Sharma has said that apps should collect minimal data just as UIDAI does to give 12-digit Aadhaar numbers to people. Some apps are ridiculously collecting more-than-required data and the customers are unaware of what is being done with it, he said. "For Aadhaar enrollment, we collect just four sets of data - your name, date of birth and your communication address. Nothing more, nothing less. Similarly, every app must collect as much data as is required," Sharma told ET Now in an interview in Bengaluru on Tuesday. "Data minimisation should be one of the principles just as Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) adopts to collect data of people," he said. Trai had noted that the existing framework of data protection of telecom consumers is "not sufficient" and that all entities in the digital ecosystem which handle personal data should be brought under a data protection fr...

Since Thursday, Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz with posts from people outraged by the reported decision of the government to declare khichdi — the mishmash of lentils and rice — as the national dish. The debates refused to die down even as Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal clarified: “Enough khichdi cooked up on a fictitious national dish. It has only been put for a record entry in World Food India.” As reported in the media, celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor will attempt to create a world record on Saturday (November 4) by cooking 800 kg of khichdi at the India Gate lawns as part of the three-day-long World Food India event. Badal has also claimed that the event aims to provide a shot in the arm for the food processing industry, and according to news reports, the copious quantity of khichdi prepared will be distributed among 60,000 orphan children and guests at the event. Yet, at a time when India is reeling at the 100th spot among 119 nations in the Global Hung...

It is not just domestic investors but also foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) who are grappling with the Securities and Exchange Board of India ’s (Sebi’s) diktat mandating linking Aadhaar with “all demat accounts”. In August, Sebi had directed the stock exchanges to cease the accounts of all the clients who failed to submit Aadhaar details by December 31. Prima facie, the circular appeared to be aimed at domestic investors. However, ambiguous wording has spooked FPIs, who have sought clarity from Sebi on whether the circular would be applicable to them too. “ FPIs, through their custodians, have written to Sebi, seeking clarity on the Aadhaar issue. The instructions issued by Sebi in this regard are not clear. We want the regulator to provide explicit exemptions so that there are no last-minute surprises,” said a source who has a direct knowledge of the development. Aadhaar is a unique-identity number issued to all Indian residents based on their biometric and demo...

India's Aadhaar identity system rivals the growth of other platform innovations like Windows, Android or Facebook , Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said. Nadella, in his book 'Hit Refresh', which was released during the ongoing Microsoft Ignite 2017 conference, has praised India's leap forward in the digital and technological arena. "Aadhaar now has scaled to over one billion people, rivaling the growth of other platform innovations such as Windows, Android or Facebook, the 50-year-old wrote in his book that hit the book stores today. He praised the creation of the new digital ecosystem IndiaStack. IndiaStack is a set of APIs (application programming interface) that allows governments, businesses, startups and developers to utilise an unique digital Infrastructure to solve Indias hard problems towards presence-less, paperless, and cashless service delivery. "China strategically used the global supply chain and their own domestic market ...

More than one million permanent account numbers (PANs) were deleted or de-activated by the government, in a move to check fake identities. Reportedly, as on July 27, 11,44,211 duplicate PANS have been identified, said Indian Express. PAN is the key identifier of taxable entity and aggregator of all financial transactions undertaken by one person. As per government rules, a person cannot be registered with more than one PAN number. The Indian Express reported that the government also detected fake PAN cards which were allotted to non-existing individuals or to people who have submitted false information about themselves. How to check if your PAN is still active 1. Visit the Income Tax e-filing portal - www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in 2. On the homepage, under the ‘Services’ tab, click ‘Know your PAN’ Read More

The Income Tax Department on Monday extended the deadline for e-filing income tax returns by five days till August 5 after complaints were received that assessees were not able to submit returns. Besides, the department also eased the time frame for linking of PAN with Aadhaar to August 31. In the meantime, the assessees can simply quote Aadhaar number or acknowledgement number of application for Aadhaar. "In view of the difficulties faced by taxpayers, date for e-filing of Income Tax returns for FY 2016-17 has been extended to 5th August, 2017," the department tweeted. The last minute inundation and heavy logging on the official website of the e-filing portal of the department led to the extension. Assessees, particularly those have some discrepancies in the name or year of birth or any other data between their Aadhar and PAN cards, were not able to submit returns. Besides, the site was also reported to be crashed in between. "Some people for whom PAN and...

The income tax (I-T) department has decided to extend the deadline for filing tax returns till Saturday. If you have not filed your returns yet, make the most of this reprieve as there are many advantages of filing on time. One important benefit is that you can rectify your mistakes, such as certain income not reported, deductions not claimed, etc., by filing a revised return. You can’t revise your return if you file it after the due date. ALSO READ : Today is the last day for filing tax returns: Step by step guide to do it in a jiffy Second, if you file your return late, you lose out on the benefit of being able to carry forward losses eligible for adjustment against future income. “This restriction on timely filing of return, however, is not applicable in cases where there are losses under the head 'income from house property'. Under Section 139(1), such losses can be carried forward even if return is filed after the due date," says Suresh Surana, founder,...