scorecardresearchAadhaar card frauds: How do you lock the biometric information to keep

Aadhaar card frauds: How do you lock the biometric information to keep your data safe?

Updated: 25 May 2023, 10:23 AM IST
TL;DR.

Bank account of You Tuber Pushpendra Singh’s mother was emptied recently. She holds an account in Punjab National Bank’s branch in Faridabad. Her aadhaar and biometric details were used for withdrawing the money by fraudsters sitting in Bihar

A number of cases where online scamsters tried to dupe investors by using aadhaar number and duplicating fingerprints have come to surface

A number of cases where online scamsters tried to dupe investors by using aadhaar number and duplicating fingerprints have come to surface

Fraudsters have found numerous ways to dupe innocent people, by stealing credit card details, hacking bank accounts, sometimes by hacking smartphones too; the latest trick in their armoury is to use aadhaar authentication.

One of the unique features of this fraud is that no one time password (OTP) is sent to the user before a transaction is carried out, rendering their account grossly vulnerable to online frauds.

One such case that came to light is that of You Tuber Pushpendra Singh where someone sitting in Bihar emptied the bank account of his mother who held an account in Punjab National Bank’s branch in Mohna Road, Ballabgarh, Faridabad, Haryana.

Although she did not share her biometric details with anyone.

He was told that a number of similar cases were reported where the hacker copied and cloned fingerprints from plot/flat registry documents.

He also shared that he himself also met a lot of victims when he went to file his complaint and all of the victims have different bank account hacking stories.

So, What can one do to avoid such cases? The easy and best way to avoid such frauds is to turn off aadhaar biometric authentication.

By default. it is on. And in that case, hackers can easily clone fingerprints and access bank accounts with different locations. Let us understand this in more details:

What is aadhaar enabled payment service?

AEPS (Aadhaar enabled payment service) is a bank led model which allows online interoperable financial transactions at PoS (Point of Sale / Micro ATM) through the Business Correspondent of any bank using the Aadhaar authentication.

To be able to use AEPS, one needs to provide KYC information to open a new account and aadhaar number should be linked with a bank account.

What is aadhaar authentication?

This is the process where the aadhaar number along with demographic information or biometric information of an individual is submitted for verification and the details are thereby verified.

It enables instant mechanisms to prove identity through online authentication. Therefore, one does not need to carry any other ID proof except aadhaar number.

How do you lock the biometric information?

The UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) gives an option to block the biometric to prevent frauds that happen by authentication of biometrics.

Aadhaar number holders who have registered mobile numbers may lock their biometrics. This facility aims to strengthen privacy and confidentiality of resident’s biometrics data.

Once biometrics are locked, if a UID is still being used for invoking any of the authentication services a biometric modality (fingerprint/ iris/ face), a specific error code ‘330’ is displayed. Consequently, the user is unable to perform the authentication.

When biometrics are locked, aadhaar holders are not able to use biometrics (fingerprints/ iris/ face) for authentication.

Even someone else, by any means, is unable to perform biometric based aadhaar authentication for that aadhaar holder once the details are locked.

And before authentication is needed, the biometrics can be unblocked again.

 

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These are the remedies for victims of online frauds. 
First Published: 25 May 2023, 10:21 AM IST