You Can Now Apply for Passport Services With Digital Documents Stored on DigiLocker: How to Use

The Indian government had launched its cloud-based storage platform DigiLocker in 2018 to enable citizens to keep their official documents like driving license, Aadhaar card, PAN card, car registration certificate, and more in a paperless form. The platform essentially allows citizens to carry digital documents that hold the same value as physical documents during verification processes. Now, the government has inaugurated the DigiLocker platform for the Passport Seva Programme to allow citizens to submit critical documents required for passport services in a paperless mode. Speaking more about the passport-related development, Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said that the integration of Digilocker is in line with the PM Narendra Modi-led government’s Digital India initiative.

To use the DigiLocker facility during the Passport Seva Programme (passport issuing process), citizens need to ensure that all their required documents (self-attested) are uploaded on the cloud storage platform. The complete list of documents required during the procedure is accessible on the Passport India portal. Following that, make sure you’re on the storage platform. Digilocker is accessible via Apple App Store or Google Play Store for Android smartphones. Its web version is available to use as well. To know more about how to sign up and upload documents on DigiLocker, the step by step process is available on this link.

Recently, the government had announced that DigiLocker crossed the 50-million registration mark. Since its inception in 2018, the cloud storage platform has improved quite a bit as an application itself. Initially, the app was reported to not be user friendly; however, over the course of time, the developers have made the app much easier to use. In terms of security, developers claim that the platform uses a 256-bit secure socket layer (SSL) encryption for all the information transmitted. It also uses OTP verification for authenticating users and allowing them access to the e-storage platform. Further, the system also terminates active sessions automatically after a certain time of inactivity.

Coming back to passport, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan added that the government is working on e-passports for citizens that are designed to increase security. In the upcoming Passport Seva Programme V2.0, the government plans to use technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, chatbot, analytics, robotic process automation (RPA) to further ease the experience of the citizens while applying for passports, the minister said.

(With inputs from PTI)

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