Seeking to Curb Fraud, UIDAI Urges Indian Citizens to Print Their Own Aadhaar Cards

The Unique Identification Authority of India is urging citizens not to pay for laminated ‘Aadhaar cards’ as they are completely unnecessary and can expose important personal details to fraudsters.

A statement from the government agency, which administrates the Aadhaar biometric national ID program, indicated that “unscrupulous elements” have been charging anywhere between Rs. 50 to Rs. 300 to print plastic and PVC Aadhaar cards, adding that the collection of Aadhaar information by unauthorized agencies is a criminal offense. The agency also suggested that these kinds of laminated Aadhaar cards can actually obscure the QR code that needs to be scanned for Aadhaar authentication, rendering them next to useless.

Indians are encouraged to instead just print out their Aadhaar cards on normal paper and ink – a perfectly acceptable form of official ID.

If that option sounds like one that presents another kind of fraud risk, it probably is. There have been numerous and mounting criticisms of the Aadhaar program’s susceptibility to fraud and other security compromises, including recent allegations that access to the back end of the Aadhaar database can be illicitly purchased, and cheaply at that. That has prompted the Indian government to take measures to improve Aadhaar security, including the introduction of a tokenization system that will let citizens authenticate via Aadhaar without having to share their actual Aadhaar numbers. But with the potential for forgeries of black-and-white Aadhaar printouts, such measures will go only so far in addressing the full breadth of Aadhaar fraud threats.

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February 9, 2018 – by Alex Perala