Modi government cleans Aadhaar database, deactivates over 2.5 crore Aadhaar cards, minister issues statement, says…

New Delhi: The Modi government has taken a major step to maintain the credibility of Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identification system. According to the reports, the authorities have deactivated more than 2.5 crore Aadhaar numbers registered in the names of deceased individuals. The main idea behind the step is to keep the Aadhaar database clean and prevent it from any kind of fraud or misuse.

The Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Jitin Prasada, shared the information in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. He further added that the process is currently underway across the country to ensure that the benefits of government schemes and services reach only genuine and living beneficiaries.

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Here are some of the key details:

Keeping an Aadhaar number active after a person’s death can lead to identity-related fraud.
The Aadhaar of a deceased person can be misused to operate bank accounts, obtain SIM cards, or wrongly avail government benefits.
Deactivating Aadhaar numbers of the deceased has been deemed necessary.
India currently has around 134 crore active Aadhaar holders.
The Modi government has implemented several technical measures to further strengthen Aadhaar security
Users have been provided with the option to lock and unlock their biometrics
This allows them to secure their fingerprint and iris data and prevent unauthorized use.
Liveness detection has been introduced in face authentication to ensure that a real person is physically present during verification.

The center has noted that in many cases death registrations take place in a different city or state, while the address recorded on the Aadhaar card is elsewhere. In such situations, timely deactivation of Aadhaar numbers by matching multiple databases becomes even more important.

To enhance security further, all institutions have been instructed to store Aadhaar number data in encrypted form in data vaults. The government has also launched a new Aadhaar app, through which family members can easily report the death of an individual.

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