Ministry of Electronics & IT 20-November, 2017 14:22 IST
Aadhaar Data is Never Breached or Leaked: UIDAI
The Unique Identification Authority of India
(UIDAI) responding to a news report, appeared in certain section of media on “210
Government sites made Aadhaar info public” as if Aadhaar data is leaked or
breached, has said that such report is a skewed presentation of the facts and
poses as if the Aadhaar data is breached or leaked which is not the true
presentation. UIDAI said in a statement here that the Aadhaar data is fully
safe and secure and there has been no data leak or breach at UIDAI.
UIDAI said that this said data on these websites
was placed in public domain as a measure of proactive disclosure under RTI Act
by these government and institutional websites which included beneficiaries’
name, address, bank account, and other details including Aadhaar number and was
collected from the third party/users for various welfare schemes. It was this
collected info which had been displayed in the public domain under RTI Act. There
was no breach or leakage of Aadhaar data from UIDAI database or server as has
been aired by the said report.
UIDAI said that acting promptly on this, UIDAI
and Ministry of Electronics & IT had directed the concerned Government
departments/ministries to immediately remove it from their websites and ensure
that such violation do not occur in future. Certain other measures were also
taken at various levels to ensure that such incidents of display of Aadhaar
numbers do not take place. Following UIDAI’s action such data were removed from
these websites immediately. However, the news presented the facts in a skewed
manner and misleads readers as if Aadhaar data has been leaked or breached at
210 websites posing Aadhaar security is vulnerable.
UIDAI reiterated that Aadhaar security systems
are best of the international standards and Aadhaar data is fully secure. There
has been no breach or leakage of Aadhaar data at UIDAI. Also, the Aadhaar
numbers which were made public on the said websites do not pose any real threat
to the people as biometric information is never shared and is fully secure with
highest encryption at UIDAI and mere display of demographic information cannot
be misused without biometrics.
UIDAI clarified that Aadhaar number is not a
secret number. It is to be shared with authorized agencies when an
Aadhaarholder wishes to avail a certain service or benefit of government
welfare scheme/s or other services. But that does not mean that the proper use
of Aadhaar number poses a security or financial threat. Also, mere availability
of Aadhaar number will not be a security threat or will not lead to financial/other
fraud, as for a successful authentication fingerprint or iris of individual is
also required. Further all authentications happen in presence of personnel of
respective service provider which further add to the security of the system.
Furthermore, UIDAI security system has people’s
participatory security system like Biometric Lock facility available at UIDAI
portal which any Aadhaarholder can use to put his/her own lock on one’s
biometric by visiting UIDAI’s official website www.uidai.gov.in.
NNK/MD
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