[captn3m0]

Yes, these have existed for quite some time. However, you could get one with varying different ID proofs earlier - Driving License, Ration Card, PAN (Tax) Card, Voter ID etc.

Now, we're all being forced to link _everything_ to a single 12-digit Aadhaar.

[Zak]

What justification is given for this?

[captn3m0]

As per lawyers, the justification for Aadhaar-linkage is very slim[0], but the government is pushing telcos to link so it is happening.

The events:

1. Supreme Court asks DoT in a regular about the status of KYC for telcos and asks for all SIMs to be compliant within a year

2. DoT (department of telco) rewords the above a "direction" (it was not binding till then) of the SC and makes Aadhaar-KYC mandatory (when the original order did not mention Aadhaar in any way, just KYC)

As for the original KYC-law, I'm not entirely sure, but it has existed for decades now.

[0]: https://www.huffingtonpost.in/chitranshul-sinha/no-the-supre...

[Zak]

It's more the original KYC law I was asking about. I find the attempt to deprive people of anonymous communication problematic and I'm curious as to the arguments that have been used successfully to do it so I can better argue against them.