After Aadhaar’s mobile application hit 1 million downloads within two months of its launch, the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) has introduced time based one time password (TOTP) as a new feature to fasttrack authentications via the app.
With the introduction of TOTP, people will not have to wait for OTP to arrive on their mobile since a dynamic OTP will be always available on mAadhaar App on their mobile phones. This will especially be helpful in slow network areas where transactions fail due to delay in receiving OTP.
Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO, UIDAI said that to improve both security and convenience, TOTP has been configured in the Self Service Update Portal (SSUP) and eAadhaar download. “In future, all OTP based Aadhaar authentication applications will be migrated to TOTP based Aadhaar authentication.” It is an 8 digit long numeric string generated as one-time temporary password (OTP) by an algorithm and valid only for 30 seconds, Pandey added.
TOTP has a time variable characteristic and is personal to the resident. It is uniquely generated every 30 seconds for each resident separately in mAadhaar. The technology is already being used by several payment companies in the country.
“TOTP addresses OTP related shortcomings like residents dependency on mobile network for SMS delivery, etc,” Pandey added.
By downloading the Aadhaar app on their registered mobile, a user need not carry physical copy of his Aadhaar card, since it stores and displays demographic data that is available on the Aadhaar card including name, date of birth, gender, address and photograph. It also includes features such as locking biometrics etc.
