New Delhi, Feb. 4 -- In a move to protect the integrity of the world's largest biometric identity system, the government has deactivated over 2.5 crore Aadhaar numbers belonging to deceased individuals.

This massive clean-up effort, aimed at maintaining an accurate database, was confirmed by the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Jitin Prasada, in a submission to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

The primary motivation for this purge is to close any loopholes that could enable the misuse of personal identities. According to the statement by the Ministry of Electronics & IT, the deactivation is vital because "In case of the death of a person, it is essential that his/her Aadhaar number is deactivated to prevent...