India drops proposal to mandate national biometric ID app on iPhones and Android phones
India’s government has dropped a proposal that would have required Apple, Samsung, and other smartphone makers to pre-install the country’s biometric ID app Aadhaar on all phones, a state agency said on Friday.
India’s government has dropped a proposal that would have required Apple, Samsung, and other smartphone makers to pre-install the country’s biometric ID app Aadhaar on all phones, a state agency said on Friday. The plan had faced strong opposition from the tech companies.
Reuters reported last month that UIDAI, the state body that operates Aadhaar, had asked the IT ministry in January to engage with Apple, Google, and other leading smartphone makers to consider mandatory pre-installation of the Aadhaar app. A unique 12-digit identity number tied to an individual’s fingerprints and iris scans, Aadhaar is held by nearly 1.34 billion residents and is widely used for verification purposes in banking and telecom services, as well as for faster airport entry.
India’s IT ministry reviewed the proposal and “is not in favour of mandating the pre-installation of the Aadhaar App on smartphones,” UIDAI said in a statement to Reuters on Friday.
Smartphone makers flagged concerns about device security and compatibility when they received the Aadhaar preload proposal, and also flagged higher production costs as they would have been required to run separate manufacturing lines for India and export markets, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.
Apple and Samsung in particular both had concerns with the proposal due to questions over safety and security, sources told Reuters in March.
The government’s decision not to proceed with the proposal shows the constraints on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s digital push as India courts firms like Apple to expand its role as a global smartphone hub. In December, India faced criticism over an order mandating smartphone firms to pre-install a telecom security app, forcing a rollback within days.
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another Big Brother attempt thwarted!
No backdoors! Hands off our private and secure iPhones, intrusive and clueless bureaucrats, autocrats, and technocrats of the world! – MacDailyNews, December 3, 2025
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