They Asked Me to Blink. That Wasn't a Photo.

Went to get a SIM replaced last month. The guy behind the counter told me to stand near the wall, look at the camera, blink twice. I assumed he was taking a photo for the form. You've probably done the same thing.

Then it clicked. That wasn't a photo. That was Aadhaar face authentication — my live face being matched against the photo in my enrolment record.

He never said the word Aadhaar. He didn't mention verification at all. And I only worked it out because I happened to have read about it. Most people walk out of there believing they got photographed for paperwork.

So I went looking, and here's what's actually on record.

In February 2025, UIDAI opened Aadhaar face authentication up to private entities — companies can now run it inside their own customer-facing apps. (source)

Somebody ran a field survey of telecom outlets across Chennai — Mogappair, Korattur, Anna Nagar, Adyar, Ayanavaram. Same pattern at each one. Stand in good light, blink at the phone camera, no explanation offered, and no option to use fingerprint or OTP instead. (source, source)

That last part matters, because UIDAI's own position is that face authentication is optional and consent-based. It's meant to be one choice among four — OTP, fingerprint, iris, face. The Department of Telecommunications has said the same thing: Aadhaar authentication is mandatory for a new SIM, but the method is flexible, and nobody should be denied service for declining face auth.

India crossed two billion Aadhaar face authentications in a single year.

I'd like to know how many of those people were told what was happening.

Here's what bothers me most about it. When it was fingerprints, you knew. You had to physically press your thumb onto a scanner — there was a moment where you participated. A blink is nothing. It doesn't register as an event. You can walk out of a shop having authenticated yourself to a national biometric database and remember it as "he took my photo."

If informed consent is already the law, why is disclosure the one step that keeps quietly going missing?

I don't have a grand conclusion. Just a small ask: next time someone at a counter tells you to blink, ask them what they're verifying, who it's going to, and what your other options are. You're allowed to ask. That sentence is owed to you before you blink, not after.

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