Sunday, February 22, 2015

7409 - De-jargoned: digital locker With this digital system you can save important documents electronically - Live Mint




The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (IT), Ministry of Communication and IT, recently launched a beta version of a digital locker, called DigiLocker. With this digital system you can save important documents electronically. You can access DigiLocker at www. digitallocker.gov.in. 

WHAT IS IT? 
Linked to your Aadhaar number, DigiLocker has data storage space of up to 10MB. This is likely to be increased to 1GB when the next version is released. The locker also provides links of government departments or agency issued e-documents. Once you upload documents in the electronic format, you will be able to share the e-documents online with any registered agency or department. You can also share these through email. You will also be able to download your e-Aadhaar. Furthermore, it will provide you with a list of issuing agencies that have issued e-documents, as well as a list of those that have accessed your documents. You can upload e-documents in a standard XML format in the digital locker repository. It will also provide eSign, which is an online service that allows individuals to digitally sign a document. Since this is still the beta phase of DigiLocker, the costs are not known. 

HOW TO USE IT? 
To sign up for DigiLocker, you need to have an Aadhaar number and a mobile phone number registered with Aadhaar. Once you visit the digital locker website, you will have to enter your Aadhaar number in the text box against ‘please enter UID’, and then enter the characters as displayed in the captcha code. After clicking on the ‘sign up’ tab, a one-time password (OTP) will be sent by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to the mobile phone number and email address that is registered with it. The OTP is valid only for 30 minutes. If the OTP lapses, or you enter an incorrect password, you would be prompted to request for a new one. You need to enter the password and click on the ‘validate OTP’ tab. Once validated, the sign-up and login process is complete. 

HOW TO UPLOAD DOCUMENTS? 
The digital locker has sections such as ‘My profile’ and ‘My certificates’. You can upload documents such as Permanent Account Number (PAN), voter ID and even secondary and higher secondary school certificates from the drop-down list. 

After you choose the document you want to upload, you need to fill in relevant details. Then you have to choose the file from your local machine and upload to the digital locker. Each file should not be more than 1MB and only PDF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP and GIF formats are allowed. 

WHAT TO EXPECT? 
After launching the beta version, the government is now looking for feedback from users. You can click on the feedback forum on the DigiLocker website to give suggestions or feedback. The intention of this digital locker is to minimize the use of physical documents. And since the government will authenticate the e-documents, chances of fraud are likely to be reduced.