India Wanted Aadhaar Pre-Installed on Every Phone. Industry Said No.
Tech industry groups pushed back hard after India quietly asked Apple, Google, and Samsung to pre-install its biometric ID app.
India's government quietly floated a bold proposal back in January: get Apple, Google, Samsung, and other major device makers to pre-install Aadhaar, the country's biometric identification app, on smartphones sold in the market.
The idea didn't go over well. Industry groups fired back with pushback letters, raising concerns about the mandate. The proposal would have effectively turned every new phone sold in India into a carrier for the government's national ID platform.
Aadhaar is already one of the world's largest biometric ID systems, covering over a billion Indian residents. But forcing tech giants to bake it into their devices at the factory level is a different beast entirely.
The letters reveal the tension between India's digital governance ambitions and the global tech industry's resistance to government-mandated software installations. No word yet on whether the proposal has been shelved or simply shelved for now.