The UIDAI has come out with a draft bill which proposes to make it a statutory body called National Identification Authority of India and provides for punishment for offences like breaching of its database.

The draft National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 proposes a slew of penalties on offences ranging from impersonation, giving wrong biometrics, unauthorised access to data among others with the highest punishment being Rs one crore in fine and three years of imprisonment.

"The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set up as an attached office of the Planning Commission. It is now proposed to be set up as a statutory authority by the name of National Identification Authority of India.

"The National Identification Authority of India is to be set up with the purpose of issuing identification numbers ('aadhaar' numbers) to residents and to provide the means to authenticate 'aadhaar' numbers to enable delivery of services and benefits to such individuals," a UIDAI official said.

Among the major offences mentioned in the draft bill is the attempt to impersonate another person by providing any false demographic information or biometric information.

This offence shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with a fine which may extend to Rs 10,000 or with both, the draft said.

Trying to address privacy issues, it says "whoever, intentionally discloses, transmits, copies or otherwise disseminates any identity information collected in the course of enrolment or authentication to any person not authorised under this Act shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine which may extend to Rs 10,000 or, in the case of a company, with a fine which may extend to Rs one lakh or with both."

Any unauthorised person fiddling with the Central Identities Data repository (central databank of UIDAI) will also be accountable to punishment with with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall be liable to a fine which shall not be less than Rs one crore.

According to UIDAI, one of the main advantage of the 12-digit unique identity number is that it will help in weeding out duplicates in the various government data hence helping projects to be implemented in a proper manner.

The UIDAI has also sought comments and suggestions on the bill which has to be sent within two weeks, by July 13, 2010.

"Comments and suggestions may be sent to lawresponse@uidai.gov.in or to the UIDAI office addressed to Deepika Mittal, Assistant Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India, 3rd Floor, Tower II, Jeevan Bharti Building, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001," the Authority said.