How to Lock/Unlock Aadhaar Biometric Data Online

When you enroll for Aadhaar Card with demographic details your biometric details like fingerprints, iris, are also captured.

The biometric data captured are used for future verification purposes, for e.g. when you submit your Aadhaar Card as a proof of identity/ address or DoB to verify your details your fingerprint will be captured to authenticate your data and if the fingerprint matches with the source than it gets verified successfully. So this process is known as eKYC verification, in this way the KYC process is completed within a few minutes and paperless with ease.

However, there are many cases where people reported that their Aadhaar biometric authentication was been misused. People who had not used their Aadhaar Card have received SMS and email from UIDAI stating e-KYC Authentication was successfully carried out using biometric data. This was a very disturbing thing and if you have come across such incidents than this can be eliminated by locking your biometric information which is stored with UIDAI.

By locking your biometric data no one will be able to access your data for eKYC or any authentication purpose until you unlock your biometric data.

Below are the complete process and steps which will help you on how to Lock/Unlock Aadhaar biometric data online.

Step by Step Process on How to Lock/Unlock Aadhaar Biometric Data Online

From your web-browser visit the UIDAI portal https://uidai.gov.in/

On the homepage, you will find an option called “Lock/Unlock Biometrics”

The biometrics lock/unlock page will open a disclaimer stating “I Understand that after biometric lock enables, I will not perform biometric authentication until I unlock Biometrics.”

Just tick mark on this disclaimer and click on the Lock/ Unlock Biometrics button

On the next page enter your UID (Aadhaar) Number or VID, solve the captcha and click on the Send OTP button or enter TOTP if you have the mAadhaar App Installed on your phone

If you have used Send OTP then you will receive a one-time-password on your registered mobile number, just enter the OTP received in the enter OTP field and click on the verify button

On the next page, the locking feature will open, and if your biometrics are not locked then a message will appear like “Dear Resident, Biometric Locking Feature is currently not enabled for your Aadhaar (UID). By enabling this feature you will able to lock and temporarily unlock your biometric authentication.”

So to proceed with locking your Aadhaar just click on the enable locking feature button

Your biometrics will successfully get locked and this message will be present on the next page

You will not be able to use Biometrics (fingerprints/iris) for authentications thus preventing potential misused, in case if you want to use your Biometrics (fingerprints/iris) for authentications then you will need to unlock your biometrics by following the same process. If you are confused about how to get your Aadhaar biometrics unlocked then you can follow the below process to get your Aadhaar unlocked.

To unlock your biometrics follow the same process which you had done for locking your Aadhaar

And once you get logged in using your Aadhaar or VID completing the OTP authentication, as you have enabled the locking feature for your biometrics on the next screen you will get to see two options

• Unlock Biometrics
• Disable Locking Feature

If you click on unlock biometrics then it will unlock your biometrics permanently and if you use Disable Locking Feature then your biometrics will only get unlocked for a specific time and after that, it will again get locked

So you can unlock your Aadhaar biometrics accordingly.