Aadhaar Card Scams: 9 Essential Tips To Avoid Major Frauds In India – News18

It is a well-known fact that digital fraud is on the rise in India. Fraudsters have devised new and sophisticated methods to scam people out of their hard-earned money, and the rising menace is also making it increasingly difficult to safeguard national identification, such as Aadhaar and others.

Here, let us tell you about some of the most important measures you can take to safeguard yourself from scams that use your Aadhaar information to execute their modus operandi.

These consist of a few must-dos and a few things that you must be cautious about at all costs, and it goes without saying that practicing a good digital hygiene can safeguard you from a majority of the threats. 

What You Should Do:

1. You can lock your Aadhaar biometric authentication to safeguard your details and prevent any nefarious entity from using it to accomplish a wide range of tasks capable of causing you loss.
2. Delete Aadhaar Card copies from other computers that don’t belong to you and keep digital copies secure.
3. Ensure your latest available mobile number is linked with your Aadhaar data.
4. In case you suspect fraud or identity theft, report the same to authorities post-haste.
5. Track your Aadhaar usage on the UIDAI website to keep a tab on where your identification is being used.

What Not To Do:

1. Never share your Aadhar number with random people who ask for it during delivery and verification. If you must share, share the masked Aadhar card which hides your full details.
2. If anyone claiming to be a government agent, bank employee, etc., gets in touch with you to ask for OTPs, never share anything with them; no official agent would ever ask for it.
3. Avoid sharing Aadhaar cards on social media and with random people. This can lead to identity theft, and it has been a major facilitator of the Fake Army Officer Scam, which works by earning the trust of unsuspecting victims by sharing official Aadhaar cards of real Army/Police/CISF officers.
4. Don’t log in to the UIDAI portal on random, vulnerable computer systems. These can store your login information, and it could be later used to access your Aadhaar data and, of course, to get a hold of your security-sensitive information.