Discuss the significance of biometric identity infrastructure like Aadhaar in ensuring accurate targeting of welfare benefits. Examine associated data protection concerns, particularly for children.

Aadhaar, backed by the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, is the world's largest biometric identity system with roughly 134 crore live holders [1]. Its de-duplicated, authenticable identity layer makes it central to accurate welfare targeting — yet the ongoing school biometric drive shows that the same architecture can itself become a gatekeeper, especially for children.

Significance for accurate targeting

• De-duplication and leakage control: a unique biometric identity weeds out ghost and duplicate beneficiaries, underpinning DBT transfers, scholarships and subsidy delivery [2].
• Portability of entitlements: authentication is identity-based, not location-based, aiding migrant access to schemes.
• Last-mile convergence: UIDAI's integration with UDISE+ gives school-wise visibility of pending updates, enabling targeted camps — over 2 crore Mandatory Biometric Updates across ~1.6 lakh schools [3][2].
• Cost-lowering for the poor: MBU was made free for the 7–15 age group from 1 October 2025 for one year, benefiting nearly 6 crore children [4].

Data protection concerns, especially for children

• Consent deficit: children cannot give valid consent; the DPDP Act, 2023 (Sec. 9) requires verifiable parental consent and bars behavioural tracking or targeted advertising directed at children [5].
• Exclusion risk: since fingerprints and iris are not capturable below age 5, updates are mandatory at 5 and 15; a missed update can block scheme authentication and even NEET/JEE/CUET registration [2].
• Purpose creep and security: mass on-site capture through thousands of machines and multiple registrars widens the custody chain, raising breach and function-creep risks.
• Privacy standard: Puttaswamy (2017) requires any such intrusion to satisfy legality, necessity and proportionality.

Aadhaar's value lies not in mandating identity but in making entitlements reach the right person. The way forward is to pair saturation drives with offline fallbacks so no child is denied a benefit for a failed authentication, strict purpose limitation and audited data minimisation for minors under the DPDP framework, and grievance redress at the school level — aligning digital identity with SDG 16.9's promise of legal identity for all.