Have you heard of cases where people are forced to use their biometrics in order to access data? This is not unusual in a country with a large population. In fact, it is one of the easiest ways in which data scamming and theft occurs. Fingerprints are not just used to authenticate your unique identity but also easily available for people to replicate it and use it wrongfully against you. To do away with these valid concerns the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has dropped an application which now lets you lock all your biometrics information so that for a certain time no one would be able to use it to authenticate information, not even the Aadhaar holder. This helps in protecting data from hackers and keeping your assets safe.
The process of locking and unlocking is extremely easy. For locking you have to open the application, and enter your MPIN ID. Tap on the icon biometrics unlocks till it changes to Confirm Biometrics Lock. To unlock, open the application in the same process and tap on Biometrics locked icon till it changes to Confirm Unlock Biometrics. However, one must note that in case your phone is lost or your official phone number is no longer synched to the Adhaar card, this process cannot be done. Details like fingerprint, iris print (eye scanning) and face scanning will be temporarily locked if you choose to keep this feature on.
Benefits of biometric locking
The greatest advantage of having your biometrics locked is that no one will be able to make wrongful use of the data to unlock other services or clone your identity. Often it is noted and reported how biometrics can be easily duplicated and scammers use it for data theft and access to several assets including identity, finance and more. If you have your biometrics locked then nobody will be able to use it to access other assets. In fact, the moment someone tries to do that a 330 error code with the message Biometrics locked will be displayed on their screen preventing them in their objectives. However, this also means that as long as this feature is on, even the Aadhaar holder will not be able to make use of their own biometrics. If they want to use it, they simple need to unlock the feature.
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