What is the password on an Aadhaar PDF
The e-Aadhaar password is built from your own name and birth year. Here is the rule, the awkward cases, and how to remove it for good.
An e-Aadhaar downloaded from the UIDAI website opens only after a password, and you never chose it. It is generated from details already on your card: the first four letters of your name in capital letters, followed by your year of birth as four digits. For a Pankaj Kapoor born in 1980 the password is PANK1980.
Read the name off the card rather than from memory. The password uses the name exactly as printed, which is not always the name you would write yourself: initials and full stops count as characters, and a shorter name simply gives you fewer letters before the year. Spelling that differs by one letter from the card will not open the file.
Having to type that password every time is a nuisance, and it stops other tools working on the file at all: nothing can read, convert or compress a PDF while it is encrypted. Unlock PDF removes the password once, using the password you already worked out, and gives you an ordinary copy that opens straight away.
Keep the unlocked copy somewhere sensible. An Aadhaar PDF with no password is exactly as sensitive as the card itself, and it is the version that will end up attached to an email if you are not careful. If you have to send it on, consider hiding the number first.
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