India’s Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI) has launched a new Aadhaar mobile application that is intended to make it safer and more convenient for residents to carry and present their national digital identity. The app, released for Android and iOS, lets users store their Aadhaar identity on a smartphone and present it when required, instead of carrying a physical card or paper printout.
UIDAI’s new app functions as a digital Aadhaar wallet. According to local coverage, it is designed to give users more granular control over information sharing by letting them present only the fields needed for a particular use case, such as age or address, rather than exposing the full record each time. It also supports QR-based presentation for offline scenarios, allowing verifiers to check authenticity without a continuous network connection.
For organizations that depend on Aadhaar for onboarding and KYC, the app could reduce reliance on photocopies and less secure digital artifacts such as screenshots. It also aligns Aadhaar more closely with global trends in verifiable credentials and mobile identity wallets, where users hold signed credentials on their own devices and selectively disclose attributes to service providers.
The launch builds on UIDAI’s ongoing efforts to modernize the Aadhaar system, including expanding facial authentication capabilities and implementing biometric data locking features to protect against unauthorized access. With over 1.3 billion enrolled users, Aadhaar remains the world’s largest biometric identification system, and UIDAI continues to balance accessibility with robust security protocols.
Sources: NDTV Gadgets 360, NDTV India
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
