Consider the following statements: 1) Aadhaar metadata cannot be stored for more than three months. 2) State cannot enter into any contract with private corporation for sharing of Addhaar data. 3) Aadhaar is mandatory for obtaining insurance products. 4) Aadhaar is mandatory for getting benefits funded out of the Consolidated Fund of India. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

The correct answer is B (2 and 4 only). The question rests on the Aadhaar Act, 2016 and the Supreme Court's 2018 judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, which read down its scope.

• Statement 1 is wrong. The authentication-record retention period under the Aadhaar regulations is six months, not three. The three-month figure is the trap.
• Statement 2 is correct. The Court struck down Section 57, which had let private bodies use Aadhaar for authentication. Section 29 bars sharing of core biometric information, so the State cannot contract with private corporations to share Aadhaar data.
• Statement 3 is wrong. Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for private services such as insurance. Mandatory linkage is permitted only under Section 7, for benefits funded from the Consolidated Fund of India.
• Statement 4 is correct. Section 7 explicitly allows Aadhaar to be required for subsidies and benefits financed from the Consolidated Fund of India.

The core concept is the limit on mandatory Aadhaar linkage. It matters for Mains GS-II on privacy, the right to privacy as a fundamental right, and the welfare-delivery versus data-protection debate.

Trap: Candidates often treat Aadhaar as mandatory wherever it is convenient to government. Mandatory use is allowed only for CFI-funded benefits under Section 7; the Court struck down most private-sector mandates.