Secure Your Aadhaar: Keep Your Identity Safe!
Your Aadhaar card is one of the most important documents you have as a citizen of India and not only does it1.
There is no denying that your Aadhaar number is security sensitive and sometimes when you accidentally leak this information, it can pose a security threat. But luckily, you can lock Aadhaar biometric authentication to secure your information and prevent malicious parties from using it to perform various tasks that can cause you losses.
In theory, you should ideally lock your Aadhaar biometrics if you’ve misplaced your Aadhaar card and therefore don’t want someone using it to access your biometrics. Another use case is if you’re concerned about the current security of your digital life or want to temporarily lock down your biometrics for added peace of mind.
Specifically, in this category, your iris, fingerprint and facial biometrics would be locked. Once it’s locked, you won’t be able to authenticate Aadhaar with these – until you unlock it.
What is biometric locking?
According to the official UIDAI website, the Biometric Lock/Unlock service “allows an Aadhaar holder to lock and temporarily unlock their biometric data. This service aims to strengthen the privacy and confidentiality of the resident’s biometric data.”
Let’s learn how to lock your Aadhaar biometrics online:
- First, you need to visit the official UIDAI website here.
- Now find Lock/Remove Biometrics setting. This can be found under Aadhaar Services under the My Aadhaar menu on the home page.
- Next, you need to enter your 12-digit Aadhaar number along with the generated OTP that will be sent to your registered number.
- Once you enter the OTP, you can lock your Aadhaar biometrics – to protect yourself from various scams and more when you’re not using them.
You can unlock your biometrics by following the same steps when you’re ready to start using them again. However, remember that locking your Aadhaar biometrics is useful, but that doesn’t mean you can be carefree and share your Aadhaar number or be sloppy with OTPs. So always keep an eye on your online security even after locking your data.
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