DigiLocker

DigiLocker is a "digital locker" service operated by the Government of India that enables Indian citizens to store certain official documents on the cloud. The service is aimed towards reducing the need to carry physical documents, and is part of the government's Digital India initiative.

1 GB of storage space is offered to users to store identification card issued by government agencies, education certificates, PAN cards, driving license, vehicle ownership documents and some other documents.

Users need to possess an Aadhar card to use DigiLocker. For sign-up, the Aadhar card number and the one-time password sent to the Aadhar-associated mobile number, need to be entered. For later log-ins, the user can set their own password or link the account to Facebook or Google logins.[1]

The beta version of the service was rolled out in February 2015,[2] and launched by the Prime Minister on 1 July 2015.[3][4] The storage space provided was 10 MB initially, and was later increased to 1 GB.[5]

In July 2016, DigiLocker recorded 20.13 lakh users with a repository of 24.13 lakh documents. The number of users saw a large jump of 7.53 lakh in April when the government had urged all municipal bodies to use DigiLocker to make their administration paperless.[6]

From 2017, the facility was extended to allow students of ICSE board to store their class X and XII certificates in DigiLocker and share them with agencies as required.[7] In February 2017, Kotak Mahindra Bank started providing access to documents in DigiLocker from within its net-banking application, allowing users to e-sign them and forward as needed.[8] In May 2017, over 108 hospitals, including the Tata Memorial Hospital were planning to launch the use of DigiLocker for storing cancer patients' medical documents and test reports. According to a UIDAI architect, patients would be provided a number key, which they can share with another hospital to allow them to access their test reports.[9]

There is also an associated facility for e-signing documents. The service is intended to minimise the use of physical documents, reduce administrative expenses, provide authenticity of the e-documents, provide secure access to government-issued documents and to make it easy for the residents to receive services.

Stakeholders [10]

The three key stakeholders of the DigiLocker platform are citizens, issuers and requesters. Let’s see how these stakeholders interact with the DigiLocker:

Citizens

Citizens can store or access their documents using the DigiLocker. They can store either an uploaded or issued document on the DigiLocker.[11]

Uploaded document: Citizens may upload scanned copies of their important documents including the driving license, voter’s ID card (EPIC), passport, marks sheets, income tax statements, etc. They can use the DigiLocker to submit a digitally signed copy to a government agency if required by that agency. However, the agency must be registered as a requester with the DigiLocker.

Issued documents: These are e-documents that have been issued on the DigiLocker by a registered issuer who pushes the Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) of the e-documents to the digilockers of citizens, based on their Aadhaar numbers. These are stored in a central repository, and citizens can see and share their respective URI links.

Issuers

Various government agencies are registered with DigiLocker as issuer and they can issue e-documents to citizens. These agencies include CBSE, Registrar Office, Income Tax Department, and so on. In 2016, CBSE issued the class 12th result, while NEET issued the rank letter, on DigiLocker. Also, all the CBSE results now onwards would be issued on DigiLocker. DigiLocker also provides the facility for issuers to issue legacy data but that would require Aadhaar seeding in the issuers’ legacy databases.

Requesters

A requester, in the context of DigiLocker, is a government department that offers citizen services (the revenue department, a passport office or a municipality) or an organisation that requires documentation (banks, telcos, etc.). In order to provide a government service, a government agency needs to ascertain an individual’s identity, age or nationality, for which various standard and supporting documents issued by multiple government agencies may be required. In order to provide its services, the requester can request for digital versions of those documents and accept those online through the DigiLocker.

Structure of the digital locker

Each user’s digital locker has the following sections.[12]

  • My Certificates: This section has two subsections:
  • Digital Documents: This contains the URI's of the documents issued to the user by government departments or other agencies.
  • Uploaded Documents: This subsection lists all the documents which are uploaded by the user. Each file to be uploaded should not be more than 10MB in size. Only pdf, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp and gif file types can be uploaded.
  • My Profile: This section displays the complete profile of the user as available in the UIDAI database.
  • My Issuer: This section displays the issuers' names and the number of documents issued to the user by the issuer.
  • My Requester: This section displays the requesters' names and the number of documents requested from the user by the requesters.
  • Directories: This section displays the complete list of registered issuers and requesters along with their URLs.

Security measures of DigiLocker

Following are the security measures[13] used in the system

  • 256 Bit SSL Encryption
  • Mobile Authentication based Sign Up
  • ISO 27001 certified Data Centre
  • Data Redundancy
  • Timed Log Out
  • Security Audit

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Digital Locker by Govt. of India: All You Need To Know; HimBuds.com". himbuds.com. 2016-05-14. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
  2. ↑ Alawadhi, Neha. "Digital India programme: Government rolls out beta version of 'digital locker'". The Economic Times.
  3. ↑ "Digital Locker Scheduled to be Launched on 1st July 2015 by the Hon. Prime Minister". blog.mygov.in. 22 June 2015.
  4. ↑ "Government’s Digi-Locker For Electronic Document Storage To Launch July 1". The Logical Indian. 2015-06-19. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  5. ↑ "DigiLocker gets good response". The Hindu. 2015-03-20. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  6. ↑ Pranav Mukul (2016-07-25). "DigiLocker initiative records a repository of 24.13 lakh docs from 20.13 lakh users". The Indian Express. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  7. ↑ "ICSE, ISC students to access digital locker facility to store, share documents, certificates". The Indian Express. 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  8. ↑ "Kotak a/c to give access to e-docs in DigiLocker". Times of India. 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  9. ↑ "100-odd hospitals plan to launch DigiLocker for cancer patients". The Indian Express. 2017-05-25. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  10. ↑ "Maximum Governance".
  11. ↑ "How To Upload Document & Certificates In Digital Locker – A Detailed Guide". Digilockers. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  12. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
  13. ↑ "DigiLocker Review - Digital Locker System launched by Indian Govt". Netmegafone shop India. 2016-06-15. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
  • Official website
  • DigiLocker - Online document storage facility, National Portal of India
  • "Can DigiLocker Catalyze Digital India?".
  • "About Digilocker – A Digital Locker to Secure Our Documents & Certificates Online". Digilockers.in. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.