Millions of Aadhaar cards still active despite holder deaths, RTI reveals

Despite over a decade of Aadhaar implementation, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has deactivated only 1.15 crore Aadhaar numbers since 2009.

This number pales in comparison to the estimated 11.7 crore deaths in India during the same period, based on an average of 8.35 million annual deaths between 2007 and 2019.

A Right to Information (RTI) query filed by India Today TV brought this disparity to light, showing that only about 8% of Aadhaar numbers were deactivated despite demographic realities.

This raises concerns about the efficiency of Aadhaar lifecycle management and the potential for misuse of active IDs belonging to deceased individuals.

UIDAI officials noted that Aadhaar deactivation following death is a manual, family-initiated process, typically requiring submission of a death certificate or application on the UIDAI website.

The authority does not automatically receive death records from local authorities, nor does it maintain a separate count of deceased individuals whose Aadhaar IDs remain active.

Experts warn that continued activation of Aadhaar numbers belonging to the dead can open doors to fraud, including illegal withdrawals from benefit schemes, pension misuse, and false identity authentication.

They recommend building a seamless, automated integration between Aadhaar and India’s Civil Registration System (CRS) to auto-flag and deactivate IDs once death is confirmed.

UIDAI has acknowledged the problem and stated that it is working with states to ensure verification is done “with due diligence” before removing any Aadhaar number.

However, there is no clear timeline on when an automated process will be fully operational.