In a move that resembles long-overdue damage control rather than a proactive reform, the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) has finally deactivated 11.7mn (million) Aadhaar numbers belonging to deceased individuals. The announcement comes years after mounting criticism of Aadhaar’s inability to account for the dead, allowing inactive biometric identities to persist unchecked in government databases. Shockingly, according to the government’s own admission in April 2023, over 60mn Aadhaar numbers were still held by individuals who were no longer alive — a fact that exposes the scale of the problem UIDAI has only just begun to address.
According to a statement from the Union ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), UIDAI collaborated with the registrar general of India (RGI) to access 15.5mn death records from 24 states and Union Territories (UTs) through the civil registration system (CRS). After 'due validation', UIDAI finally changed the status of 11.7mn Aadhaar numbers to non-active from active. The exercise is said to be ongoing in other non-CRS states, with only 670,000 death records received so far.
While the numbers sound impressive, they underscore a troubling truth: for more than a decade, UIDAI had no mechanism in place to detect or disable Aadhaar numbers issued to people who had died. This glaring gap allowed these identities to remain active, potentially enabling misuse, identity fraud, and duplication across welfare schemes and databases.
The inherent problem lies in the design of the Aadhaar system itself. Unlike voter rolls, which routinely remove names of the deceased through regular ground-level verifications, Aadhaar was built as a static, once-issued-forever-valid identity — without exit provisions. Until recently, there was no provision to deactivate the Aadhaar number of a deceased person, and the UIDAI had no coordination with state registrars who maintain birth and death records under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act.
When MP Adoor Prakash raised this issue in Parliament in 2023, the then minister of state for electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, acknowledged the absence of such a mechanism. He stated that UIDAI had only 'apprised' the registrar general of India about capturing Aadhaar numbers at the time of issuing death certificates, implying that no system was in place — only suggestions were made.
Despite being pitched as a foolproof, tech-driven backbone for public welfare and financial services, Aadhaar’s administrative inertia has repeatedly come under fire. From wrongful exclusions of the living in welfare distribution to duplication and errors in biometric matching, the system’s structural shortcomings continue to pile up.
The deactivation of over one crore Aadhaar numbers now, while necessary, is not a success story — it is a confession of long-standing neglect. The very need for such a bulk exercise reveals that UIDAI has spent years inflating its own database with ghost identities, resulting in questionable statistics and misallocation of resources.
The Aadhaar database’s credibility issue becomes even starker when one examines the data on Aadhaar saturation by state. According to official figures, several states and UTs have assigned more Aadhaar numbers than their projected populations, revealing widespread over-registration, duplication, or lack of data validation.
For instance, Delhi shows a saturation rate of 133%, indicating that Aadhaar enrolment has far exceeded the population it is meant to cover. Haryana (115%), Kerala (113%), Chandigarh (113%), Punjab (112%), Goa (111%), Lakshadweep (110%), and Uttarakhand (109%) also show saturation levels well above 100%. These numbers directly contradict the foundational claim that Aadhaar is a clean, unique identity system.
Other states with inflated figures include Telangana (108%), Gujarat (107%), Andhra Pradesh (105%), West Bengal (104%), and Maharashtra (104%). Even smaller territories like Dadra and Nagar Haveli (111%), Daman and Diu (107%), and Andaman and Nicobar Islands (103%) have issued more Aadhaar numbers than the number of residents projected for the regions.
On the other hand, states like Assam (85%), Arunachal Pradesh (88%), Nagaland (68%), and Meghalaya (71%) show under-enrolment, raising separate concerns about inclusion and access.
These wide inconsistencies across states suggest a lack of harmonisation between UIDAI’s enrolment mechanisms and actual demographic data, further supporting the argument that Aadhaar, far from being an accurate identity system, has devolved into a bloated and error-prone database. Whether due to multiple enrolments, errors in population estimation, or misuse of registration protocols, the result is a national identity system that cannot be reliably used for governance, planning, or the delivery of services.
In response to the mounting criticism, UIDAI last month launched a new online feature on the myAadhaar portal called 'reporting of death of a family member'. Currently available in 24 states and UTs using the CRS system, it allows citizens to inform UIDAI about the death of a relative. But the system relies on voluntary input, lacks legal enforcement, and offers no guarantees of timely verification or deactivation.
To supplement this, UIDAI claims it is exploring the possibility of sourcing death records from banks and other entities. But these ad hoc fixes come across as reactionary rather than part of a well-conceived identity lifecycle management framework.
Experts have long pointed out that without an institutionalised ‘exit’ protocol for Aadhaar numbers, the integrity of the system will remain compromised. A national biometric ID system that cannot distinguish between the living and the dead is not just an administrative failure — it is a potential risk vector for fraud, money laundering, ghost beneficiaries and digital impersonation.
There is also little clarity on what happens after an Aadhaar number is deactivated. Are linked services — such as bank accounts, mobile numbers, welfare entitlements — automatically suspended? Does the data remain archived or is it deleted? In the absence of legislative clarity and data protection laws, citizens are left to guess how their digital identities are being handled posthumously.
For a system touted as the 'most sophisticated ID programme in the world', Aadhaar’s blind spot on death is a serious credibility challenge. The recent cleanup by UIDAI is a long-overdue step, but far from enough. What the Aadhaar ecosystem needs is institutional accountability, automatic integrations with civil registries and mandatory know-your-customer (KYC) updates linked to death records — not mere tokenism via online forms.
Until then, the Aadhaar database will remain haunted by millions of ghost entries, bloating the state’s illusion of digital inclusion while masking a deeper identity crisis. UIDAI may have finally found the dead — but it is still searching for a system that works for the living.
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