A cloud-based virtual storage DigiLocker

Government’s Digilocker service, gives every Indian a virtual document archive.

Every new product or initiative needs a 'killer app' to kickstart it. It is over a year since the Prime Minister 'launched' the DigiLocker -- a cloud-based virtual storage where every citizen can store important personal documents in digital form. The actual roll-out took another nine months till April this year. Even then only pitifully small number of states -- Andhra Pradesh, Telengna, Kerala, Odisha and Delhi -- linked their e-district services to DigiLocker.

It is only last week, that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, integrated Driving licenses and Vehicle Registration Certificates DigiLocker. Now finally, the idea of digitizing one's key documents and storing them in the Cloud begins to make sense for most of us. Like PAN Card, Aadhaar number and Voter ID Card, the driving license has become a key element of personal identification beyond its obvious need when driving. Many of us carry photocopies of our RCwhen driving, preferring to store the original safely at home. Now you can upload driving license and RC to your Digilocker -- in fact if you have a DigiLocker account, a new document will be directly issued to your locker. When demanded, you can show authorities your documents on your mobile phone.

Creating your own DigiLocker is simple: Go to digilocker.gov.in and use your mobile phone number to get your locker. It makes sense to link your Aadhaar number to the locker, since it automatically uploads all the documents that you have linked to your Aadhaar card. You can also link other important personal documents -- birth or marriage certificates, school leaving certificates, degrees and diplomas, passports and visas. You get 1GB of free space.

For some years now, I have been storing my key personal documents in free cloud storage provided by Gmail (Google Drive), Windows Live (OneDrive) or YahooMail (a massive 1TB of storage through Dropbox). You never know when it will come in handy. I once landed in Singapore and found I had misplaced the paper visa I was carrying. But in that tech-savvy country I had no problem in entering: the officer at the immigration desk was happy to let me show him a scan of the visa, I had uploaded to my OneDrive and stamped my passport after verifying it.

Even if you are doing likewise with one or other free cloud storage services, it makes sense for Indians to sign up for Digilocker: Increasingly public services will be geared to read directly from your own personal locker and save you the hassle of carrying various ID and address proofs. New government docs s will be issued directly to your locker. This is a revolutionary step forward -- as demat or dematerializing stocks and share certificates was, 20 years ago.

We Indians have a canny sense of what is good for us. Already in its few months of operation, the DigiLocker has attracted 2.1 million users, who between them uploaded 2.5 million documents. This in spite of a wobbly experience at times ( as my homework for doing this story, I enrolled -- but found the system does not always allow me to access my locker. There seems to be a traffic jam after the announcement about driving license and RC book.) I'm guessing things will settle down -- and every one of us, can upload our precious document assets and be assured they are safe in Cyberia!

-IndiaTechOnline