Goa’s APAAR ID for students raises privacy concerns amid push for digital inclusion

Digital integration in India is in full swing as the education sector, signed by the Goa government, will see the issuance of a unique 12-digit certificate APAAR (Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry) identification number for school students across the state.

According to a report from Times of Indiathe ID will serve as a lifelong digital identity for students, allowing educational records to be consistently tracked and accessed as students progress through different academic stages. The APAAR ID is generated using each student’s Aadhaar number, which facilitates the creation of a DigiLocker account where academic documents can be securely stored in digital form.

APAAR was introduced by the Union government as part of a recommendation of the National Education Policy 2020, which called for setting up an online “academic bank” to store students’ earned credits throughout their higher education.

While the initiative aims to streamline data management and improve education tracking, it has raised privacy concerns among civil society groups and digital rights activists.

The APAAR system, as part of a broader digital public infrastructure (DPI) agenda.is expected to create a centralized database to store students’ academics, attendance and other school-related information. Goa joins several other states in India that have introduced similar systems to manage student data more efficiently.

The Goa Ministry of Education plans to work with schools to integrate the APAAR ID system, seeing it as a step towards realizing the government’s vision of a unified, data-driven education infrastructure.

Privacy issues come up

Digital rights organizations, including the Internet Freedom Foundation forum, raised alarm regarding the APAAR ID system, questioning existing security measures and the possibility of data misuse.

Activists are concerned that creating such detailed digital profiles for minors, without robust safeguards, could lead to data exploitation, surveillance and profiling. Because children’s data may be accessible to multiple agencies, civil rights organizations argue that risks to student privacy could escalate without transparent data protection frameworks.

Concerns are compounded by the fact that APAAR’s implementation comes ahead of a final national data protection law, leaving room for ambiguity in data sharing policies and oversight mechanisms. Critics argue that APAAR could set a precedent for normalizing ubiquitous data collection, especially as personal data increasingly takes center stage in state-run digital initiatives.

While the government emphasizes the benefits of this initiative, activists said so too Role that implementing a digital registry like APAR is premature given the current lack of universal digital literacy in the country and the government’s ongoing challenges in providing basic facilities to all schools across the country.

Article topics

Aadhaar | APAAR | biometrics | digital identity card | identity management | India | student card