Top official of the insurance firm says it was inadvertently done
The Life Insurance Corporation of India on Friday said they will remove the mandatory requirement of providing Aadhaar number for customers to access their policy pages, saying it was “inadvertently done”.
The move comes after The Hindu on Thursday pointed out how the insurance company was forcing people to update their Aadhaar number and PAN on their login page to access their policy pages and other details.
Replying to an email sent to the Chairman on Thursday, the Executive Director Corporate Communications, LIC, said the earlier website was available without requesting the Aadhaar number.
“Subsequent to the migration to a new portal, the LIC has planned to extend the range of facilities offered to our customers online,” the Executive Director said.
“Keeping in mind that data security and privacy are of paramount importance and also abiding by the Regulator’s directives, we have sought additional information from the customer to establish his online credentials. In the process, seeking of Aadhaar number, PAN details mandatorily was inadvertently done,” the official said.
The official added that the issue has been escalated with their technical team and “we will be removing the requirements of the mandatory providing of Aadhaar number and PAN”. However, the official has not specified a date by which this would be done.
Like a firewall
The mandatory requirements on the site acted like a firewall preventing access to a customer’s policy pages if they didn’t provide the Aadhaar number and PAN details. Legal experts feel that the move is in violation of the Supreme Court interim order extending the deadline of customers providing Aadhaar number for services to March 31. Subsequent to this interim order, the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDA) issued a circular to all insurance companies with the new deadline.
Many customers had raised objections regarding this move of LIC on Twitter. Some customers whom The Hindu spoke to had said they were forced to part with their Aadhaar number as they could not access their pages.
Keeping in mind that data security and privacy are of paramount importance, we sought additional information from the customer
Executive Director Corporate Communications, LIC