India is pushing Aadhaar, the world’s largest digital identity system, deeper into everyday privacy through a new app and offline verification support, a move that raises new questions about security, consent and wider use of the massive database.
It was announced in late January by the Indian government-backed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the changes introduce a new Aadhaar application alongside an offline verification framework that allows people to prove their identity without real-time checks on the central Aadhaar database.
The app allows users to share a limited amount of information, such as confirming they are above a certain age instead of revealing their full date of birth, with a range of services including hotels and workplace accommodation companies, platforms and payment devices, while the existing mAadhaar app continues to run alongside for now.
Along with the new app, UIDAI is also extending Aadhaar fingerprinting to mobile wallets, with upcoming integration with Google Wallet and ongoing discussions to enable similar functionality in Apple Wallet, on top of existing support in Samsung Wallet.
The Indian authority is also promoting the use of the app in policing and hospitality. Ahmedabad City Crime Branch has become the first police unit in India to integrate Aadhaar-based offline verification with PATHIK, a visitor tracking platform launched by the police department, which targets hotels and lodges to capture visitor information.
UIDAI has also positioned the new Aadhaar application as a digital visiting card for meetings and networking, allowing users to share selected personal information via a QR code.
Officials at the launch in New Delhi said these latest efforts are part of a broader effort to replace photocopies and manual ID checks with consent-based offline verification. The approach, they argued, aims to give users more control over the specific identity information they want to share, while enabling verification at scale without having to query the central Aadhaar database.
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Early absorption over a massive scale
While UIDAI officially launched the new Aadhaar app last month, it has been in testing since earlier in 2025. Estimates from Appfigures show that the app, which hit app stores towards the end of 2025, quickly surpassed the older mAadhaar app in monthly downloads.
Combined monthly installs of Aadhaar-related apps rose from nearly 2 million in October to nearly 9 million in December.
The new app builds on an ID system that is already working on a massive scale considering India’s population. Data published on UIDAI’s public dashboard show that Aadhaar has issued more than 1.4 billion ID numbers and handles about 2.5 billion authentication transactions every month, along with tens of billions of electronic “know your customer” checks since its launch.
The shift to offline verification doesn’t replace this infrastructure as much as it extends it, moving Aadhaar from a primarily backend verification tool to a more visible and everyday interface.
While launching the app, UIDAI officials said the move towards offline verification was meant to address long-standing risks associated with physical photocopies and screenshots of Aadhaar documents, which have often been collected, stored and circulated with minimal oversight.
The expansion comes at a time of regulatory changes, easing restrictions and a new context (PDF), with UIDAI now allowing certain public and private organizations to verify Aadhaar credentials without querying the central database.
Consent, accountability and unresolved risks
Civil liberties and digital rights groups say these legal changes do not address Aadhaar’s deeper structural risks.
Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international advisor and director of Asia-Pacific policy at Access Now, said the expansion of Aadhaar to offline and private sector settings introduces new threats, particularly at a time when India’s data protection framework is still in place.
Chima questioned the timing of the rollout, arguing that the federal government should have waited for the Data Protection Board of India to be set up first and allow for an independent review and wider consultation with affected communities.
“The fact that this has gone forward at this time seems to indicate a preference to continue expanding the use of Aadhaar, even if it is unclear what further risks it may pose to the system, as well as to Indians’ data,” Chima told TechCrunch.
Indian legal advocacy groups also point to unresolved implementation failures.
Prasanth Sugathan, legal director of the New Delhi-based digital rights group SFLC.in, said that while the UIDAI has framed the app as a tool to empower citizens, it does little to address persistent problems such as inaccuracies in the Aadhaar database, security gaps and inadequate redress mechanisms, which disproportionately affect the most vulnerable population.
He also mentioned a Report 2022 by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, who found that UIDAI had failed to meet certain compliance standards.
“Such issues can often lead to disenfranchisement of people, especially those who benefit from such systems,” Sugathan told TechCrunch, adding that it remains unclear how the data shared through the new app will prevent breaches or leaks.
Campaigners associated with Rethink Aadhaar, a civil society campaign focused on Aadhaar-related rights and accountability, argue that the offline verification system risks bringing Aadhaar use back into the private sector in ways that the Supreme Court has already expressly prohibited.
The group’s Shruti Narayan and John Simte said that allowing private entities to routinely rely on Aadhaar for verification amounts to “Aadhaar creep”, normalizing its use across social and economic life despite 2018 decision which removed provisions that allowed private agencies to use Aadhaar to verify people’s information. They warned that consent in such contexts is often illusory, particularly in situations involving hotels, accommodation companies or distribution workers, while India’s data protection law remains largely untested.
Together, the new implementation, regulatory changes and expanding ecosystem are shifting Aadhaar from a background identity utility to a visible layer of everyday life that is increasingly difficult to avoid. As India doubles down on Aadhaar, governments and tech companies are watching closely, lured by the promise of population-scale identity checks.
India’s IT ministry and the UIDAI chief executive did not respond to requests for comment.
