The administration, on Thursday, published an advisory to all states to take documents in electronic form. With the concept of paperless governance, and an intention to make life easier for citizens, the government stated that papers such as driving license, car registration, voter ID, PAN card, school and college documents, and many other documents originated by the government will now be taken, when offered in digital form. These documents can even be utilized for photo ID purposes at airports and railway terminals.
What is Digi Locker?
DigiLocker, as the name implies, is a ‘digital locker’ for civilians to securely store copies of all their certificates. DigiLocker is a stand for issuance and confirmation of documents and certificates in a digital form, thereby excluding the use of physical certificates. Indian residents who sign up for a DigiLocker account get a dedicated cloud storage space that is associated with their Aadhaar or UIDAI number.
KYC Via Video Call
Prior to this addition, RBI has recently also released video-based Know Your Customer KYC as an alternative to building a customer’s identity. This decision was also recognized as a significant relief to fin-tech startups and digital non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) who have been asking for this feature as it lowers costs in a big way.
The unique remote customer authentication option rejected the need to actually reach out to customers in distant locations. However, due to privacy safety concerns, the RBI has suggested entities to assure that the video recording is saved in a safe and secure way and has the date and timestamp.
Moreover, the regulating body also urged the groups to take the help of the latest accessible technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and face matching technologies, to secure the honesty of the process as well as the data furnished by the customer.
Further, to promote digital payments in the country, RBI has also stated to allow users to give an e-mandate for repeating payments done through Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
The RBI had stated that keeping in view of the dynamic payment needs and the necessity to balance the safety and protection of card transactions with customer ease, it has been chosen to permit processing of recurring UPI payments.
What are the advantages of DigiLocker?
The Value of Giving the Service:
DigiLocker will slowly take down the cost of providing the service by the govt. It will decrease the govt’s staffing requirement & other operational expenses thus will take the govt expenditure in check. Govt has introduced a fiscal deficit mark of 3.9% for FY 2015-16. It can be accomplished either by increasing income or decreasing expenditure. DigiLocker will support Govt to essentially cut down the cost of rendering the service/expenditure. It cannot be achieved overnight but will need time. If successful, the Govt will not require an army of staff to give Citizen Services. Therefore, if you sign up for DigiLocker, you will obliquely help Govt to lessen the cost of giving the service thus manage the fiscal deficit.
eSign:
In layman words, eSign is self-attestation or digital sign. It is the replacement of a real signature. The user can sign the certificate via aadhaar associated digital signature. The best point is-the eSign facility is Free whereas, for digital signs, you require to pay annual fees.
Rapid turnaround time:
Today it needs around 2 weeks to receive a new PAN card. Most people apply through brokers which include an additional cost. Now think, the entire method is digital. The income tax department will put online requests for documents needed to issue PAN. You will eSign the papers through DigiLocker using the Aadhaar e-KYC setting.
Corruption Free India:
Corruption is immediately connected to Human Interaction. To give an example, it was almost unthinkable to get a Passport 10 years back without giving the bribe. Due to digitization, the whole online means is corruption-free. You apply for a passport online and schedule an appointment. On the chosen day, You submit your papers and biometric details were taken. You don’t have to pay a single rupee for passport till police attestation. DigiLocker is the real enabler of digitization which will further decrease the human interplay to avail Govt Help. Therefore, it will assist in achieving the goal of Corruption Free India.
Anytime Anywhere Admission:
You can get your documents anytime anywhere. No requirement to bring your documents. Therefore, DigiLocker delivers comfort factor. Govt is also preparing to launch Mobile App soon, which will further make it handy to access the certificates on the move.
Signing up for DigiLocker
DigiLocker is an extremely secure system, as both the cloud and the mobile app are fastened by Aadhaar authentication. You have to give your Aadhaar and OTP to avail of the assistance provided. You can utilize your username and password to login to your DigiLocker account. Alternatively, you can apply your Aadhaar number and OTP to login. It is worth stating that a person can have only one DigiLocker account as it is associated with the Aadhaar of the person.
Getting documents published or uploading them on DigiLocker
You can upload your certificates, and even get them published by the applicable government officials such as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Income Tax Department, CBSE, Indane, etc. In case you need to get your certificate issued, select the issuing company and enter your specifications and the document will be published and uploaded in your DigiLocker account. If you desire to upload documents on DigiLocker, select the kind of paper and upload the scanned copy of the paper. You can e-sign the paper using the Aadhaar authentication method through OTP and share it with the requester company.