The UIDAI has given assurance about the safety and security of data being maintained by them.The statement came in response to the ongoing controversy suggesting data leak of Aadhaar by 210 government websites, UIDAI said that all the data is safe and secure with them.
“Aadhaar data is fully safe and secure and there has been no data leak or breach at UIDAI,” said the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), in response to a report based on RTI that sated 210 government website made Aadhaar information public.
It said Aadhaar number is not secret and if there is a requirement then it has to be shared within authorised agencies to avail benefits of government based welfare schemes or several other services.
The authority had reportedly replied to an RTI and said that approximately 201 websites of the central government, state government departments including educational institutes have been displaying the list of beneficiaries along with their name, address, other details and Aadhaar numbers for information of the general public.
The UIDAI had clearly stated that it placed the name, address, bank account and other details including Aadhaar number of the beneficiaries in public as a measure of proactive disclosure under the RTI Act by the government and institutional websites.
It said that the data was collected from the third party and users for various welfare schemes.
Acting promptly to the situation, UIDAI and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology have directed the government departments and the ministries concerned to remove the data immediately from their websites and ensure that no such violations repeat in the 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,” the statement said.
The authority even clarified that the data which was made public will not result in any real threat to the people as the biometric information is still safe and secured and it is never shared.
UIDAI said that any Aadhaar linked transaction can be processed only after a successful authentication of fingerprint or iris of an individual.
“Further all authentications happen in presence of personnel of respective service provider which further add to the security of the system,” UIDAI said.
