India is witnessing a worrying trend of spurt in financial frauds. An IIT-Kanpur study shows that between January 2020 and June 2023, financial scams accounted for more than 75 per cent of all the cybercrimes that were reported in the country. Most of these financial scams were related to digital banking and UPI payments. Nowadays, cyber criminals have begun to target people by using the fault in the newly-launched Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS).
The scariest part of this kind of scam is that the victim won’t get any prompt such as an OTP or a link or a mail. Criminals can simply steal all your money by accessing the biometric details registered for Aadhaar cards. Scammers get hold of the fingerprint details thereby getting the name of the bank and account details of the victim. The worst part is that people, who are targeted in AePS scam, don’t even get an SMS when the money is debited from their bank accounts.
Scammers are often looking for their victims at hotels, photocopy shops and local cyber cafes as these are the places where people usually submit their Aadhaar details. Once they get hold of the Aadhaar details, cybercriminals often stalk their victims to get the details of their bank accounts. The most critical aspect of this scam is fingerprint details. Reports say that criminals look for fingerprint details at government offices such as registry offices etc where people need to submit their fingerprints for record purpose. Silicon thumbs are used to take the fingerprints, which are then used to withdraw money from victim’s account by using AePS.
How to lock your Aadhaar biometric details: Step-by-step guide
- To save yourself from the AePS scam, it is necessary to lock the Aadhaar biometric details.
- This can be done by using the UIDAI site or mAadhaar mobile app. The AePS is always enabled as part of default setting for all Aadhaar holders. Hence, it is necessary for the users to take note of this and disable it from the default setting to keep their data safe.
- To lock biometric details and disable AePS default setting, you need to download mAadhaar on your smartphone and signup by registered mobile number.
- You need to verify Aadhaar details and then you will get an option to lock the biometric data.
- There’s always an option to unlock the data in future. You can also use the app to secure your Aadhaar number by locking it, which ensures that individuals cannot utilize their Aadhaar number and OTP to register for online services.
What’s Aadhaar-enabled Payment System?
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) recently launched the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) in compliance with the guidelines established by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
This innovative system empowers Aadhaar cardholders to perform various financial transactions, such as depositing cash, withdrawing funds, checking their account balance, obtaining a mini statement, conducting Aadhaar-to-Aadhaar fund transfers, authenticating transactions, and making payments through BHIM Aadhaar. All these operations can be effortlessly carried out by providing just three key pieces of information: the bank name, Aadhaar number, and biometric authentication.