India 13 September 2016: The much awaited, DigiLocker mobile app was launched by Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari and Minister for Information and Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad at the Transport Ministry in New Delhi.
DigiLocker is a ‘digital locker’ service launched by the Government of India in February 2015 to provide a secure dedicated personal electric space for spacing the documents of resident Indian citizens. It is one of the key initiatives under Digital India Programme, which the Indian government initiated to digitally empower society and knowledge economy, targets the idea of paperless governance.
According to the ministry, DigiLocker will eliminate the use of physical documents, help accessing them anytime, anywhere and able to share online, and avoid forgery. The integration of driving license and registration certificates with the DigiLocker will enable their access through mobile devices, which means citizens need not carry physical copy of Driving License; they just need to install the app. The digital copies of driving license and registration certificate can also be shared with other departments for verification purpose.
Although it is a great initiative by the Government of India to provide a secure centralized document storage and sharing facility. It is interesting to note that fraudsters have been quick to capitalize on this and have ended up creating numerous DigiLocker apps and in order to make it look authentic to their future victims; they have used not just the Indian Prime Minister’s photo but also used India’s National Emblem.
Allowing the trend analysis based on previous/ past experiences, it is to be noted that these fake apps might steal your credentials or act as Adware or in worst cases the apps might become the harbinger of Ransomware.
Google’s Play store makes use of Google Bouncer, which searches the Android market for apps that could be malicious. However, it allows anyone to publish an app in the Play
Store. The fake apps’ download range is 10,000 to 50,000 whereas original DigiLocker app download range is between 1 lakh to 5 lakhs, which somehow indicates you about the authenticity. Thus, it’s a message to the users to refrain from such fake apps and download the DigiLocker app, developed by ‘MeitY, Government of India’ and make ‘Digital India’ Campaign a real success.