uidai-deactivates-over-2-5-crore-aadhaar-numbers

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has deactivated more than 2.5 crore Aadhaar numbers of deceased persons to prevent identity fraud and unauthorised use of welfare benefits, the government informed Parliament on Wednesday.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada said Aadhaar remained the world’s largest biometric identity system, with around 134 crore active Aadhaar holders.

“As part of a nationwide clean-up effort to maintain the continued accuracy and integrity of the Aadhaar database, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has deactivated more than 2.5 crore Aadhaar numbers of deceased persons till date,” Prasada said.

He said timely deactivation following the death of an individual was essential to prevent potential identity fraud or unauthorised use of Aadhaar numbers for accessing government welfare schemes.

“In case of the death of a person, it is essential that his or her Aadhaar number is deactivated to prevent potential identity fraud, or unauthorised usage of such Aadhaar number for availing welfare benefit,” the minister said.

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Prasada said the government had put in place multiple safeguards to ensure secure and leak-proof delivery of benefits linked to Aadhaar. These include the biometric lock and unlock feature, which allows Aadhaar holders to restrict the use of their biometric data and block unauthorised authentication attempts.

He added that UIDAI has deployed face authentication with a “liveness detection feature” to prevent spoofing and to ensure the physical presence of beneficiaries during transactions.

The minister said efforts were also underway to promote Aadhaar Secure QR Code, Aadhaar paperless offline e-KYC, e-Aadhaar and Aadhaar verifiable credentials, enabling offline identity verification without sharing biometric data.

The disclosure comes amid ongoing scrutiny of data security and misuse of identity documents, with the government emphasising periodic database cleansing as a key measure to strengthen Aadhaar-linked service delivery.