DigiLocker, India’s app for issuance and verification of documents, tops 100 million users

DigiLocker, an app that enables individuals in India to digitize and store a copy of more than 560 different documents, including government-issued ID cards, says it has topped 100 million users.

The app, conceived by India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT over six years ago, is New Delhi’s attempt to create a paperless governance ecosystem.

Individuals need to physically possess scores of documents in their day to day lives: An ID card at the airport or railway station, for instance, a driver license when commuting, school and college certificates when applying for a job and policy documents when making insurance claims.

DigiLocker uses APIs to retrieve, digitize and store most of these documents and is recognized by nearly all government bodies, several fintech services and nearly all insurers, to authenticate an individual’s identity and other things. Each user gets a storage space of 1GB.

The app, which had 38 million users in 2020, today stores nearly 5 billion documents, according to official stats. Staggering figures indeed for this unique platform.