New Delhi, Feb. 4 -- As the Aadhaar case was reaching the Supreme Court, the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) began to restrict private access to its authentication infrastructure. It now seems that hard stand is beginning to soften. A new amendment to Aadhaar authentication rules could finally allow us to leverage our identity infrastructure to better unlock greater efficiencies in digital services.

When Reliance Jio launched telecom services in 2016, it added a staggering 170 million new customers in the first 100 days of its operations. This, frequently referred to as the fastest in the history of the global telecom industry, was only possible because Jio was able to use Aadhaar eKYC to complete its statutory customer acquis...