India Deepens Aadhaar’s Role in Daily Life as Privacy and Security Questions Resurface
India is accelerating the expansion of Aadhaar, the world’s largest digital identity system, into everyday private and commercial interactions through a newly launched app and an offline identity verification framework. While officials describe the move as a step toward user control and convenience, digital rights advocates warn that concerns around privacy, consent, and accountability remain unresolved.
The initiative, announced in late January by the government-backed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), introduces a new Aadhaar application alongside an offline verification system that allows individuals to confirm their identity without making live checks against Aadhaar’s central database.
A New App and Offline Verification Model
The newly launched Aadhaar app enables users to share only limited identity details depending on the situation. For example, instead of revealing a full date of birth, users can simply confirm whether they meet an age requirement. The app is designed for use across a wide range of settings, including hotels, housing societies, workplaces, online platforms, and payment devices.
UIDAI confirmed that the existing mAadhaar app will continue operating in parallel for now.
Alongside the app, UIDAI is expanding Aadhaar’s presence in digital wallets. Aadhaar credentials are already supported on Samsung Wallet, with upcoming integration planned for Google Wallet and discussions underway regarding similar functionality in Apple Wallet.
Use Cases Expand Into Policing and Hospitality
Indian authorities are actively promoting the app for use in policing and hospitality sectors. The Ahmedabad City Crime Branch has become the first police unit in the country to integrate Aadhaar-based offline verification with PATHIK, a guest-monitoring platform developed by the police department to record visitor information at hotels and guest accommodations.
UIDAI has also positioned the app as a digital alternative to business cards, allowing users to share selected personal details through QR codes during meetings and networking events.
At the New Delhi launch, officials emphasized that the system is designed to replace physical photocopies and manual ID checks with consent-based, offline verification. According to UIDAI, this approach allows individuals to control what information they share while enabling large-scale verification without directly querying Aadhaar’s central database.
Rapid Adoption on a Massive Existing Base
Although officially launched last month, the new Aadhaar app had been in testing since early 2025. Data from Appfigures shows that after appearing in app stores toward the end of 2025, the new app quickly surpassed the older mAadhaar app in monthly downloads.
Combined monthly installations of Aadhaar-related apps increased sharply, rising from nearly 2 million in October to almost 9 million in December.
This growth is layered onto an identity system already operating at extraordinary scale. According to figures published on UIDAI’s public dashboard, Aadhaar has issued more than 1.4 billion identity numbers and processes around 2.5 billion authentication transactions each month, in addition to tens of billions of electronic “know your customer” (eKYC) checks since its launch.
Rather than replacing existing infrastructure, offline verification extends Aadhaar’s reach, shifting it from a largely invisible backend system into a tool that citizens interact with directly in daily life.
Regulatory Shifts and Policy Changes
The expansion coincides with regulatory changes and a new framework that relaxes earlier restrictions. UIDAI now permits certain public and private organizations to verify Aadhaar credentials offline without querying the central database.
Officials argue this reduces risks associated with physical photocopies and screenshots of Aadhaar documents, which have historically been collected and circulated with limited oversight.
Critics Warn of Consent and Accountability Gaps
Despite these assurances, civil liberties and digital rights groups say the legal and technical changes fail to address Aadhaar’s deeper structural risks.
Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international counsel and Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now, said the expansion into offline and private-sector use introduces fresh risks, particularly while India’s data protection framework remains incomplete.
“The fact that this has gone ahead at this point of time seems to indicate a preference to continue the expansion of the use of Aadhaar, even if it is unclear in terms of the further risks that it might pose to the system, as well as to the data of Indians,” Chima told TechCrunch.
Chima also questioned the timing of the rollout, arguing that the government should have waited for India’s Data Protection Board to be established and allowed for broader consultation and independent review.
Implementation Failures and Legal Concerns Persist
Legal advocacy groups highlight unresolved implementation issues. Prasanth Sugathan, legal director at New Delhi-based digital rights group SFLC.in, said that while UIDAI presents the app as a tool for citizen empowerment, it does little to resolve long-standing problems.
These include inaccuracies in the Aadhaar database, security lapses, and ineffective grievance redress mechanisms—issues that have disproportionately affected vulnerable populations.
Sugathan cited a 2022 report by India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), which found that UIDAI had failed to meet several compliance standards.
“Such issues can often result in disenfranchisement of people, especially those who were meant to be benefited by such systems,” Sugathan told TechCrunch, adding that it remains unclear how the new app prevents data breaches or leaks.
Fears of ‘Aadhaar Creep’ in the Private Sector
Campaigners linked to Rethink Aadhaar, a civil society initiative focused on rights and accountability, argue that the offline verification model risks reintroducing private-sector Aadhaar use in ways explicitly barred by India’s Supreme Court.
Group members Shruti Narayan and John Simte warned that enabling routine Aadhaar verification by private entities amounts to “Aadhaar creep,” despite a 2018 Supreme Court judgment that struck down provisions allowing private actors to use Aadhaar for identity verification.
They also cautioned that consent in settings such as hotels, housing societies, or gig work environments is often not genuinely voluntary, particularly while India’s data protection law remains largely untested.
Aadhaar Moves From Infrastructure to Everyday Interface
Taken together, the new app, regulatory adjustments, and expanding ecosystem are transforming Aadhaar from a background identity utility into a visible and increasingly unavoidable part of everyday life. As India continues to double down on Aadhaar, governments and technology firms worldwide are closely watching the experiment, drawn by the promise of population-scale digital identity systems.
The Indian IT Ministry and the UIDAI CEO did not respond to requests for comment.
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