Lock Your Aadhaar Biometric Data To Avoid Major Scams In India: Here's How

Your Aadhaar card is one of the most important pieces of documentation you have as a citizen of India, and not only does it help you sign up for various services, but it is also linked to your biometrics such as fingerprints and eye iris scans.

It can’t be denied that your Aadhaar number is security-sensitive, and sometimes when you accidentally leak out this information, it can pose a security threat. But luckily, you can lock your Aadhaar biometric authentication to safeguard your details and prevent any nefarious entity from using it to accomplish a wide range of tasks capable of causing you loss.

In theory, you should ideally lock your Aadhaar biometrics if you have misplaced your Aadhaar card and hence don’t want someone using it to access your biometrics. Another use case would be if you have concerns regarding the current safety of your digital life, or you want to temporarily lock your biometrics to have extra peace of mind.

Notably, under this category, your iris, fingerprint, and face biometrics would be locked. Once it is locked, you won’t be able to authenticate Aadhaar using these—until you unlock it, of course.

What is Biometric Locking?

According to the official UIDAI website, the Biometric Locking/Unlocking service “allows an Aadhaar holder to lock and temporarily unlock their biometrics. This facility aims to strengthen the privacy and confidentiality of the resident’s Biometrics Data.”

With that said, let’s learn how to lock the biometrics of your Aadhaar online:

1. Firstly, you have to visit the official UIDAI website here.
2. Now, search for the Lock/Unlock Biometrics setting. This can be found under ‘Aadhaar Services’ in the ‘My Aadhaar’ menu on the homepage.
3. Next, you will need to enter your 12-digit Aadhaar number, along with the generated OTP that will come to your registered number.
4. Once you enter your OTP, you will be allowed to lock your Aadhaar biometric data—safeguarding yourself against various scams and more when you are not using it.

You can follow the same steps to unlock your biometric data once you are ready to start using it again. But remember that locking your Aadhaar biometrics is useful, but this doesn’t mean you can be carefree and share your Aadhaar number away or be careless with OTPs. So, always keep a tab on your online safety even after locking your data.