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India's government-run digital document wallet, where issued certificates hold the same legal validity as the original physical documents.
DigiLocker is a cloud-based document wallet operated by the Government of India that lets a citizen receive, store and share authenticated digital copies of official documents. It is run by the National e-Governance Division under the Digital India Corporation, in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and was launched publicly on 1 July 2015 alongside the Digital India programme after a beta release in February 2015. Its defining feature is not storage but legal status: a document issued into DigiLocker by an authorised issuer is deemed to be at par with the original physical document under Rule 9A of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker facilities) Rules, notified in February 2017. This makes DigiLocker one of the foundational layers of India's digital public infrastructure, alongside Aadhaar and UPI.
Type: PolicyLegal parity — an issued document in DigiLocker is treated as equivalent to the original physical document under Rule 9A of the IT (Digital Locker) Rules notified in February 2017; any government office must accept it
Two kinds of documents — 'issued documents', pushed directly by an authorised issuer such as CBSE, an RTO or a university, which carry the legal parity; and 'uploaded documents', which the user scans and stores themselves and which do not
Aadhaar-linked — a resident's locker is tied to their Aadhaar number, which is what allows an issuer to identify the right recipient and push a document into it
1 GB of storage per account for scanned legacy documents
Three-party architecture — issuers upload documents in a standard format and push a secure link (a URI) into the resident's locker; requesters such as employers or verifying agencies fetch the document in real time through an access gateway, with the resident's consent
Wide document coverage — driving licence, vehicle registration certificate, PAN, Class X and XII marksheets, insurance policies, Ayushman Bharat Health Account records and many state-issued certificates
Entity Locker, launched in 2024, extends the same model to organisations — MSMEs, startups, trusts and large companies — with 10 GB of encrypted storage, role-based Aadhaar-authenticated access and consent-based sharing
Scale — about 67.63 crore users and over 950 crore documents issued as of March 2026
Frequency: Moderate — a standing e-governance topic in SSC and banking exams, and a recurring illustration in UPSC GS-II answers on digital governance
DigiLocker moves documents rather than copies them: the issuing authority remains the source of truth, and the locker holds a verified pointer to it.
Step 1 — Sign-up: a resident creates an account authenticated against their Aadhaar number, which becomes the address at which issuers can reach them
Step 2 — Issuer push: an authorised issuer — a school board, an RTO, an insurer, a university — publishes the document in a standard format in its own repository and pushes a secure link into the resident's locker
Step 3 — Storage as a pointer: the locker holds the link and metadata rather than an editable copy, so the document displayed is always fetched from the issuer's repository and cannot drift from the official record
Step 4 — Requester access: when a verifier needs the document, it is fetched in real time through the access gateway with the resident's consent, so verification does not depend on trusting a submitted photocopy
Step 5 — Self-upload: separately, a resident may scan and store their own legacy documents in 1 GB of space; these are convenient but do not carry the legal parity of issued documents
Beta February 2015; public launch 1 July 2015 with Digital India
Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)
National e-Governance Division, Digital India Corporation
Rule 9A, IT (Digital Locker) Rules, notified February 2017
1 GB
10 GB, for organisations (launched 2024)
About 67.63 crore
Over 950 crore
DigiLocker's contribution is legal rather than technical. India's administrative culture ran on attested photocopies — a system that imposed a real cost on every citizen applying for anything and gave verifying officials no reliable way to detect forgery. By deeming an issued digital document equivalent to the original and by fetching it live from the issuing authority instead of accepting a submitted copy, the platform removes both the citizen's errand and the verifier's uncertainty at once. That is why it is grouped with Aadhaar and UPI as digital public infrastructure: like them it is a thin, reusable layer that many services build on, rather than an application in its own right. The limitations belong in a balanced answer. Legal parity attaches only to issued documents, so the scans people upload themselves are merely convenient. Coverage depends on each issuer digitising its records, which is uneven across states and departments. And because the locker is addressed by Aadhaar, it inherits the access and privacy questions that surround Aadhaar itself — now governed by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — along with the practical problem that a citizen without reliable connectivity or a smartphone cannot use any of it.
DigiLocker — MeitY, implemented by the National e-Governance Division under Digital India Corporation
Beta February 2015; publicly launched 1 July 2015 with Digital India
Rule 9A of the IT (Digital Locker) Rules, notified February 2017 — issued documents are at par with originals
ISSUED documents carry legal parity; self-UPLOADED scans do not
Aadhaar-linked locker; 1 GB storage per citizen
Three parties: issuer, requester, resident — linked through an access gateway with consent
Entity Locker (2024) extends the model to organisations with 10 GB storage
About 67.63 crore users and over 950 crore issued documents as of March 2026
Part of India's digital public infrastructure with Aadhaar, UPI, e-Sign and Account Aggregator
Yes, if it is an issued document. Under Rule 9A of the IT (Digital Locker) Rules, notified in February 2017, documents issued into DigiLocker by an authorised issuer are deemed to be at par with the original physical documents. Documents you scan and upload yourself do not carry this status.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), through the National e-Governance Division of the Digital India Corporation. It was launched on 1 July 2015 under the Digital India programme.
Yes. A DigiLocker account is linked to the user's Aadhaar number, which is what allows issuing authorities to push documents directly into the right person's locker.
1 GB per citizen account for self-uploaded documents. Entity Locker, the version for organisations launched in 2024, provides 10 GB of encrypted storage.
A 2024 extension of the DigiLocker model for organisations — MSMEs, startups, trusts and companies — offering 10 GB of encrypted storage, Aadhaar-authenticated role-based access, consent-based sharing and legally valid digital signatures.