How Can Government Portals Stop Booking Bots Without Locking Out Citizens?
Indian Railways deactivated 3.02 crore suspicious IRCTC user IDs in 2025 and brought in Aadhaar checks for Tatkal booking, yet in the first half of 2026 bots still made up 57.74% of requests to its e-ticketing system. The US Embassy in India cancelled about 2,000 bot-booked visa appointments, and a month later visa agents said some agencies were using "automated tools and artificial intelligence." Here is what the notices, Parliament replies and GIGW 3.0's accessibility rule say, and what a portal cannot skip.