DigiLocker is a "digital locker" introduced in February 2016 and the service was launched by the Government of India in July 2015 to provide a secure dedicated personal electronic space for storing the documents of resident Indian citizens.^[2] The storage space of 1GB is linked to the Unique Identification Authority of India (Aadhaar number) of the user, which can be utilised for storing personal documents like University certificates, Permanent account number (PAN) cards, voter id cards, the URIs of the e-documents issued by various Government departments.

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.

To sign up the user should possess an Aadhar Card and a mobile number linked to it.

DigiLocker is one of the key initiatives under the Digital India Programme. This was released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.

Key stakeholders of DigiLocker

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.

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.

Security measures of DigiLocker

Following is the security measures 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