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New Delhi. After facing continuous opposition to the proposal of making Aadhaar App mandatory in smartphones, the government has now decided to withdraw this proposal. This means that now it will not be necessary to pre-install the Aadhaar app in the phones of smartphone companies. In fact, a government organization said that the Government of India has decided not to move ahead with the proposal under which it would have been necessary for Apple, Samsung and other smartphone companies to pre-install the Aadhaar app in their phones; This move was opposed by these big smartphone companies.

Reuters reported last month that UIDAI, the government body that administers Aadhaar, had in January asked the IT ministry to hold talks with Apple, Google and other major smartphone makers to consider making pre-installation of the Aadhaar app mandatory. Aadhaar, a 12-digit unique identity number linked to a person’s fingerprint and iris scan, is held by about 1.34 billion Indians and is widely used for verification purposes including banking and faster entry into airports.

UIDAI said in a statement to Reuters on Friday that India’s IT ministry has reviewed the proposal and is “not in favor of making it mandatory to pre-install the Aadhaar app on smartphones.” However, no reason was given for this decision in the statement.

Aadhaar tried 6 times in two years

UIDAI, in its statement, said the IT ministry had “consulted with stakeholders from the electronics industry” before taking the decision to scrap the Aadhaar pre-installation offer. According to Reuters report, this request for Aadhaar was the sixth time in the last two years that the government has sought pre-installation of government apps on phones. All six of these efforts were opposed by smartphone companies.

Smartphone companies gave this argument

When smartphone makers received the proposal to preload Aadhaar, they raised concerns about the security and compatibility of the devices, according to documents seen by Reuters. Additionally, he also talked about increased production costs as they had to run separate manufacturing lines for India and export markets. Sources told Reuters in March that both Apple and Samsung, in particular, had concerns about the proposal because of safety and security questions.

The government’s decision not to move ahead with this proposal shows the limitations on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s digital campaign. This comes at a time when India is trying to expand its role as a global smartphone hub by attracting companies like Apple. In December, India faced criticism over an order that made it mandatory for smartphone companies to pre-install a telecom security app; Due to this criticism, the government had to withdraw this order within a few days.

A senior Indian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that the IT ministry does not support any pre-loading of apps, “unless it is considered absolutely necessary.”