India's Digital Sovereignty Push: From VPN Crackdown to Aadhaar-Based Identity Purge

India is implementing what appears to be a coordinated national strategy to assert greater control over its digital ecosystem, combining regulatory pressure on international service providers with large-scale technical enforcement of its domestic identity infrastructure. Two parallel developments—one targeting data leaks through VPNs and platforms, another purging millions of fake identities from critical national systems—reveal a sophisticated approach to digital sovereignty that cybersecurity professionals should monitor closely.

The VPN and Platform Advisory: Closing Data Leak Channels

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued formal advisories to Virtual Private Network (VPN) service providers and various online platforms operating in India. The directive demands these entities block or remove access to websites and platforms that are allegedly leaking personal data of Indian citizens. While the specific websites weren't named in available reports, the advisory represents an escalation in India's efforts to control data flows and hold intermediaries accountable for content and data breaches that affect its citizens.

This move follows India's broader regulatory stance on VPN services, which has included requirements for data localization and user identification—policies that have led some major VPN providers to exit the Indian market. The new advisory specifically ties VPN providers to the downstream problem of data leaks, suggesting a regulatory linkage between anonymity tools and personal data protection failures. For cybersecurity teams operating in or with India, this creates additional compliance complexity, particularly around data residency and intermediary liability.

The Railway Cleanup: Aadhaar OTPs as an Enforcement Tool

Concurrently, Indian Railways has executed one of the largest digital identity purges ever documented, deactivating 30.2 million (3.02 crore) suspicious user IDs from its IRCTC online booking platform in less than twelve months. The trigger for this massive cleanup was the integration of Aadhaar-based One-Time Password (OTP) verification for Tatkal (last-minute) ticket bookings across 322 train services.

The technical implementation is noteworthy: users booking under the premium Tatkal category must now verify their identity through an OTP sent to their Aadhaar-linked mobile number. This real-time verification creates a direct link between the digital booking and India's biometric identity system, effectively eliminating the possibility of bulk bookings through automated bots or fake identities. The scale of the cleanup—30.2 million IDs—reveals the previously undocumented magnitude of identity fraud in the system, which had been exploited to hoard tickets for resale or speculative purposes.

Connecting the Dots: A National Digital Security Strategy

These developments are not isolated incidents but appear to be components of a broader national strategy with two clear objectives:

1. Controlling Cross-Border Data Flows: The VPN advisory represents India's ongoing effort to assert sovereignty over data pertaining to its citizens, regardless of where that data is hosted or through which channels it flows. This aligns with India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act and its general trend toward data localization.

1. Enforcing Domestic Identity Integrity: The Railways operation demonstrates the practical application of Aadhaar—the world's largest biometric ID system—as a tool for system integrity. By linking critical services to verified identities, India can combat fraud at scale while creating an audit trail for all transactions.

Cybersecurity Implications and Professional Considerations

For the global cybersecurity community, India's approach offers several important insights:

• The Convergence of Policy and Technology: India is demonstrating how national identity systems can be leveraged for cybersecurity enforcement beyond their original purpose of service delivery.

• Scale of Implementation: The deactivation of 30.2 million fake IDs in a single system illustrates both the scale of digital fraud in emerging economies and the potential of centralized identity systems to address it.

• Regulatory Expansion: The VPN advisory shows how cybersecurity regulations are expanding to encompass not just data holders but also infrastructure providers that enable data flows.

• Technical Precedent: The Aadhaar OTP implementation for railway bookings establishes a technical precedent that could be replicated across other critical infrastructure sectors, from banking to healthcare.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Digital Sovereignty

India's dual approach—regulating international digital intermediaries while strengthening domestic identity verification—may become a model for other nations seeking greater control over their digital ecosystems. The technical success of the Railways cleanup, despite privacy concerns that have long surrounded Aadhaar, suggests that large-scale identity verification can deliver tangible results in combating systemic fraud.

For multinational corporations and cybersecurity professionals, the implications are clear: operating in India requires navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape that prioritizes data sovereignty and identity verification. The lines between cybersecurity, data protection, and national digital policy are blurring, creating both challenges and opportunities for security practitioners who can adapt to this new reality.

As India continues to refine its approach, the cybersecurity community should monitor how these policies evolve and what technical implementations follow. The combination of regulatory pressure on international services and technical enforcement through domestic identity systems represents a significant development in how nations approach digital security in an interconnected world.