The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched the mAadhaar app, a digital tool that allows holders of Aadhaar numbers to carry their in their smartphones.
The app syncs all information available on your Aadhaar, such as demographic details, name, date of birth, gender, postal address and photograph, after you link your Aadhaar with the app.
Now that is a convenient way to carry Aadhaar everywhere, all the time.
The app also allows you to lock and unlock your biometric data–a feature that was earlier possible only through the UIDAI web portal.
For safety and security reasons, the mAadhaar app uses a two-layer authentication.
The app has a Google Authenticator-like one-time password generation tool within the app for this purpose.
The OTPs generated by the tool are read by the app automatically; there is no way to enter them manually.
The app allows you to update your profile using the app, and the change reflects in the app once they are approved.
The mAadhaar app APK file is already available for download on Google Play marketplace, and has been launched only for Android users only for now; however, it might be released for iOS soon as well.
However, the app is currently in beta stage, notes UIDAI in its announcement tweet, and some of the features will be made available post future updates.
Notably, the app allows users to lock or unlock biometrics data.
Once a resident enables Biometric Locking system their biometric remains locked till the Aadhaar Holder chose to either Unlock it (which is temporary) or Disable the Locking system.
Interestingly, the mAadhaar app also comes with "Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP)" feature that can be used instead of SMS-based OTP.
With the mAadhaar app, users will be able to get the updated view of the profile upon completion of the update request and they will even be able to share QR code and password protected eKYC data to retrieve accurate demographic information from it instead of manual entry.
To recall, a new amendment to the tax proposals in the Finance Bill for 2017-18 made it mandatory from July 1 for anyone who has a PAN card to provide their Aadhaar number to the principal director general of income tax (systems) or DGIT (systems).
