New Delhi, June 22 (IANS) The government on Monday said that Aadhaar app has crossed 31 million (31 crore) downloads since it was launched less than 5 months back, witnessing a robust acceptance among people across India.

So far, almost 40 lakh people have updated their mobile numbers using the new Aadhaar App. At the same time, around 850,000 people have used the App for updating their address, the IT Ministry said.

“The growing adoption reflects increasing resident confidence in the App for bringing services at their fingertips,” the ministry mentioned.

The new Aadhaar App is available in both Android and Apple iOS platforms.

Designed to improve ease of living, the new Aadhaar App enables people to avail various services including mobile number update, and address updates easily directly from their smart phones. It is designed to provide Aadhaar Number Holders (ANH) with a convenient and privacy-first way to show, share, and verify their identity.

The app has several pro-people features including biometric lock/unlock in a single click, face verification for proof of presence, authentication history, and a QR-based editable contact card for easy sharing of contact instead of physical visiting cards.

It also allows to download e-Aadhaar and facilitates easy appointment booking online for visiting Aadhaar Seva Kendras (ASKs) among others.

The Aadhaar App supports a wide range of real-life use cases. These include hotel check-ins through Offline Verification Seeking Entity’s (OVSE) QR code scanning.

It facilitates hospital admissions, visitor management, event entries, identity verification of gig workers, and service partners among many such use cases.

In a significant push towards privacy-first digital services, the government said recently that at least 100 entities have been onboarded as Offline Verification Seeking Entities (OVSEs) within just three months of the rollout of Aadhaar-based offline verification.

The milestone, achieved by the Unique Identification Authority of India, marks a major step in enabling secure, consent-driven and paperless identity verification using Aadhaar without requiring real-time access to central databases.

–IANS

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