Security Analysis of Aadhaar Authentication Process and Way Forward

Aadhaar, India’s indigenous digital identity program, has already covered more than 90% of the residents of India by issuing more than 1.30 billion Aadhaar numbers by 15th Oct 2021 and is set to achieve the global strategic goal (SDG 16.9) as defined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals of providing legal identification for all by 2030 in near future. Aadhaar is the world’s largest identity project which aims to provide unique identity to all the residents of India. A number of government social welfare schemes are using Aadhaar as a means of identification of beneficiaries for disbursement of services, and increasingly, a host of private sector entities such as banks etc. are also using Aadhaar. The number of Aadhaar based transactions is more than 40 million per day and is likely to increase exponentially, however many cases of frauds taking place in Aadhaar authentication are also being reported in media. This technology assessment focuses on analyzing the security problems associated with Aadhaar authentication process and various mitigation steps taken to minimize frauds. This paper concludes by providing recommendations to minimize the security risks and frauds in Aadhaar authentication.