UIDAI denies Aadhaar data breach, says data fully safe

Giving assurety to citizens, UIDAI said, “It maintains complete log and traceability of the facility and any misuse can be traced and appropriate action taken.”

An advertisement related to Aadhaar-card. Photo: Youtube

Rebutting a media report which stated that Aadhaar details could be accessed in Rs 500 and in 10 minutes, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Thursday said it is a case of misreporting.

Saying that “The Aadhaar data including biometric information is fully safe and secure”, the UIDAI statement added that it has given search facility for the purpose of grievance redressal to the designated personnel and the state government officials in order to help residents only by entering their Aadhaar number/EID.

Giving assurety to citizens, UIDAI said, “It maintains complete log and traceability of the facility and any misuse can be traced and appropriate action taken.”

UIDAI reiterated that the reported case appears to be an instance of misuse of the grievance redressal search facility.

Considering that UIDAI maintains complete log and traceability, a legal action including lodging of FIR against the person involved in the instant case is being done.

Explaining that UIDAI only gives limited access to name and other details and has no access to biometric details, the statement said, “We reassure that there has not been any data breach of biometric database which remains fully safe and secure with highest encryption of UIDAI and mere display of demographic information cannot be misused without biometrics.”

The UIDAI response came in the wake of a report published on The Tribune (January 03) stating that the newspaper bought a service being offered by anonymous sellers over WhatsApp providing unrestricted access to details for any of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers created in India so far.

The newspaper spared just Rs 500 via Paytm and in merely 10 minutes the “agent” of the group running the racket created a gateway and gave a Login ID and password.

Later, the UIDAI highlighted that the Aadhaar number is not a secret number. It is shared with authorized agencies whenever an Aadhaar holder wishes to avail certain service or benefit of government welfare scheme or other services.

"But that does not mean that the proper use of Aadhaar number poses a security or financial threat,” said UIDAI statement.

Responding to the Tribune's claim that after paying Rs 300 “agent” provided them a software to facilitate the printing of the Aadhaar card after entering the Aadhaar number of any individual, the UIDAI said, “mere availability of Aadhaar number will not be a security threat or will not lead to financial/other fraud, as for successful authentication fingerprint or iris of individual is also required.”

Also, claims of bypassing or duping the Aadhaar enrolment system are totally unfounded, as per UIDAI.

Lastly, the notification added that UIDAI data centres are infrastructure of critical importance, and they are protected accordingly with high technology conforming to the best standards of security and also by legal provisions.