With an increase in the number of complaints of men putting up fake profiles on matrimonial websites and duping women, the government has decided to step in and create a technology platform to check such fraudsters.

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has called a meeting of various matrimonial site agencies and other stakeholders on July 8 to decide a “robust, scalable, multi-tenant architecture for preventing the exploitation of young women” registered on such sites.

One of the steps DeitY is likely to propose is making Aadhaar mandatory to keep out or track down frauds. Earlier, Women and Child Development minister Maneka Gandhi had also called for making Aadhaar mandatory for registering on such sites. In fact she was the first to raise this issue after her ministry was inundated with complaints from women who were cheated while looking for grooms online.

Last November, Gandhi had met senior representatives of leading websites such as Bharat Matrimony and Jeevansathi.com, and suggested beefing up security features to prevent such fraud.  

In a strategy paper, DeitY has recommended that matrimonial websites should make provisions to capture the Aadhaar number of a prospective groom, put a measure in place for Aadhar seeding, and provide facility during search to filter cases that are not verified by the 12-digit unique identity number.

But matrimonial agencies are apprehensive about making Aadhaar mandatory. “We have a mechanism of internal checks to ensure that fake profiles get detected. We are open to the idea of strengthening safety features to detect fraud. But at the same time we can’t stop people from registering with us if they don’t give their Aadhaar number. One of the documents we ask for from those registering is the Aadhaar number but most don’t provide it as they are not comfortable,” said Rohan Mathur, national sales head, Jeevansathi.

"We are ready to do that but Govt should also think about the members who doesnt have Aadhaar Accounts"  said Vivek Khurana, Founder of Matrimonial site casansaar.com.