India Wants Wide Business Use Of Its Huge Aadhaar Biometric Database, Now With Facial Recognition
Techdirt has been writing about India’s huge Aadhaar database of biometrics, which assigns a unique 12-digit number to all Indian citizens, for a decade now. The system was introduced to make it easier for people in India to access key government services by authenticating their identity, but there were soon plans to allow businesses to deploy it in commercial applications. In an important ruling in 2018, the Indian Supreme Court placed restrictions on how businesses could use Aadhaar. Now the Indian government has introduced an amendment to the original law that unequivocally allows commercial applications of the Aadhaar system (found via TechCrunch). The press release for the “Notification of Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Amendment Rules, 2025” explains how Aadhaar authentication is being widened in order to enhance “ease of living” (emphasis in the original):
The amendment seeks to enhance the scope and utility of Aadhaar authentication to further promote good governance, social welfare, innovation, and knowledge dissemination allowing the usage of Aadhaar for improving service delivery and thereby enhancing ease of living for residents and enabling better access to various services for them. The amendment would help people seamlessly avail the services of e-commerce, travel, tourism, hospitality and health sector etc. being provided by entities other than government entities also.
The amendment enables both government and non-government entities to avail Aadhaar authentication service for providing various services in the public interest for related specific purposes like enablement of innovation, spread of knowledge, promoting ease of living of residents and enabling better access to services for them. This will help both the service providers as well as the service seekers to have trusted transactions.
Businesses that wish to deploy Aadhaar authentication have to apply “with the details of intended requirements to the concerned ministry or department of the Central or the State government”. The application is examined by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs the Aadhaar system. However, from the press release it is clear that the Indian government is keen to expand the use of Aadhaar as widely as possible, presumably in the hope that doing so will drive innovation and efficiency.
According to the Aadhaar Dashboard, over 1.4 billion people have been enrolled in the Aadhaar database. Around 100 million authentications take place each day, and in total 130 billion authentications have been carried out. Most authentications involve fingerprints, with a small number using iris biometrics. Aadhaar has also started using facial recognition (pdf) to authenticate people.
Assuming the latest expansion to business is not blocked by the Indian Supreme Court, it is likely to drive an even wider use of the Aadhaar system, potentially touching every aspect of life in India and beyond. There are clear advantages for users, but there is also a danger. The Aadhaar number could become a natural way to track people online, and to create consolidated databases that unify public and private information about them, even if the UIDAI insists that is not the aim. As it adds facial recognition to its Aadhaar system, India is carrying out an important digital and social experiment, one which the rest of the world would be wise to watch closely.