No ID app pre-installation on phones, says India’s IT ministry

Details: Vaughan O'Grady; Category: Regulation; 21 April 2026; 174 views

India's government has decided not to go ahead with a proposal to require smartphone makers to pre-install the country's biometric identification app Aadhaar on phones.

Aadhaar is a unique 12-digit identity number tied to an individual's fingerprints and iris scans. Nearly 1.34 billion Indians have apparently signed up to it. It is widely used for verification purposes in banking and telecom services, as well as for faster airport entry.

But it looks like it won’t be preloaded on smartphones at manufacturing stage. Reuters reported last month that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the state body that operates Aadhaar, had asked the IT ministry in January to engage with leading smartphone makers to consider mandatory pre-installation of the Aadhaar app.

India's IT ministry has now said it is not in favour of mandating the pre-installation of the Aadhaar App on smartphones. It gave no reason for the decision but did, according to a UIDAI statement, hold a "consultation with stakeholders from the electronics industry" prior to making its decision.

According to India’s Economic Times and Reuters, this was the sixth time in two years the government has sought pre-installation of state apps on phones. All six attempts were opposed by the industry.

Device security and compatibility were among the issues cited for opposing preload of Aadhaar but another concern – higher production costs – may have been even higher on the list, as the phone makers would have had to run separate manufacturing lines for India and export markets.

While the government maintains Aadhaar is safe and secure, the app has faced persistent criticism from privacy advocates, including, as we have reported, for data leaks.

Reuters has also quoted Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a New Delhi-based digital advocacy group, who calls this IT ministry decision “a welcome exercise of regulatory restraint that recognises that citizens carry their phones as extensions of their autonomy, not as vessels for government order”.