Provident Fund UANs can now be activated using Aadhaar biometrics

The EPFO’s UAN can now be activated and allotted using face authentication.

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)’s Universal Account Number (UAN) can now be activated and allotted using face authentication, Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Tuesday (April 8, 2025).

The enhanced digital services of the EPFO mark a significant step towards contactless, secure, and fully digital service delivery for crores of its members, he said while talking to reporters.

At present, UANs are generated by employers submitting employee data to the EPFO. Although this data is validated using Aadhaar data, many errors occur in other fields such as father’s name or mobile number etc, Mr. Mandaviya noted. “Due to these errors, many employees had to update their data while submitting claims or for other benefits. In most cases, mobile number of member was not given or wrongly mentioned by employer due to which EPFO could not contact or reach out to member if required,” he said.

In 2024-25, more than 1.26 crore UANs were allotted by EPFO. “However, only 35.30% were activated by the members during 2024-25. Several reminders were given to employers to get employees to activate their UANs using Aadhaar OTP. “New employee can directly generate UAN using Aadhaar Face Authentication Technology (FAT) using the Umang Mobile App. Any employer can also use the same Umang App to generate UAN using Aadhaar FAT for any new employees,” the Minister said.

Mr. Mandaviya said this simplified process will help in 100% validation of Aadhaar and user, using face authentication. “All data of the user is pre-populated directly from Aadhaar database. Mobile number of user is matched with mobile registered with Aadhaar. UAN activation on EPFO portal simultaneously completed during generation process. UAN generation directly done by employee himself/herself and e-UAN card PDF can be downloaded by employee, removing any dependency with employer. At the time of employment, employee can hand copy of e-UAN card PDF and UAN to employer for on-boarding with EPFO,” the Minister said, adding that access to EPFO services such as passbook viewing, KYC updates, claim submission, and more are immediately unlocked.

Members who already have a UAN but have not yet activated can also activate their UAN through the UMANG App. “Biometric authentication using Face Authentication provides a higher level of security compared to traditional methods such as demographic or OTP-based authentication. It ensures accurate and tamper-proof identity verification at the very entry point into the EPFO system,” he said.