Decision to mandate use of student ID for board exams in India prompts criticism

There are concerns in India following a decision by the country’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to make it mandatory for Class 10 and 12 students to use their APAAR digital IDs for board exams registration.

APAAR, an acronym for Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry, is a 12-digit number which is linked to a student’s academic record and used throughout their academic life cycle.

The APAAR ID is voluntary but the decision to make it a requirement for board exams registration is being interpreted by some critics and rights advocates as a covert way of making it mandatory, The Print reports.

To these critics, making the APAAR compulsory raises questions about freedoms, data security and privacy.

The outlet quotes Mishi Choudhary, founder of Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), as expressing worries about the multiplicity of identification documents in the country, adding that “in the absence of legal sanction, it is worrisome to see that schools are being directed to enroll students en masse after forcing parents’ consent.”

Another critic, Shreeja Sen, an independent technology researcher, also picked holes in the CBSE decision, questioning whether all schools have the necessary infrastructure to manage the process in a hitch-free manner.

The Print also interviewed another researcher, Srinivas Kodali, who sees in the move, risks of exclusion of minors., and even profiling, while a Digital Futures Lab researcher equally raised concerns about surveillance and other risks arising from placing education records in a centralized repository.”

The APAAR was introduced as part of a national education policy reform in India in 2020. It can be used to access a student’s academic records on DigiLocker, a major component of India’s digital public infrastructure stack.

Last year, there were concerns from digital rights advocacy organizations, including the Internet Freedom Foundation, about the need for measures to ensure data privacy and security with the student ID system when it was introduced in the State of Goa.

Around 170M school children to update Aadhaar biometrics

In a related development, a joint initiative has been announced between the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the country’s Ministry of Education to accelerate the update of biometrics for school children’s Aadhaar records.

The move aims to reduce last-minute Aadhaar update rushes and ensure smoother access to services for students at all levels, says a recent news release from the Press Information Bureau.

UIDAI has prescribed school-based implementation of the exercise which is expected to touch around 17 crore (170 million) school children of age 5 and 15, to ensure accuracy in their Aadhaar data.

Article Topics

APAAR  |  biometrics  |  children  |  digital ID  |  India  |  student ID  |  UIDAI