Government’s highly ambitious Aadhaar-program has been in the news recently for several alleged data breaches. Multiple news reports have hinted that Aadhaar database has serious vulnerabilities that can compromise sensitive user information.
The most disturbing news from April that questions the privacy of Aadhaar system claims that data of 1.34 lakh Indians was leaked due to security flaws in the system. According to the Union Minister for Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Aadhaar system cannot be hacked, even in a hundred crore attempts. He reportedly said that three crore Aadhaar authentications are done every three seconds. So far, eighty crore bank accounts are linked to Aadhaar.
The program launched in 2009 is a proof of residence document and not citizenship. Aadhar Card has a twelve digit unique number, never starting with 0 or 1, which stores the personal details of individuals in the government’s database.
The Central Government has pushed citizens to link their Aadhaar Card to various services, including bank accounts, sim cards and a large number of welfare schemes. The government is even linking driving license to an Aadhaar card.
Aadhaar works as a single identification document but does not replace any other document. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is the agency overlooking the Aadhaar scheme, has launched a 'Blue Aadhar’ in February this year for newborns and children under 5 years of age.
The biometric data stored against Aadhaar number contains fingerprints and iris scans. The data is stored in such a manner that it cannot be broken into, even with a billion attempts. An individual could be prosecuted if he discloses information regarding iris scan and fingerprints to an unknown person.
Mr. Prasad said that India has a promising future in the this era of digitization. Aadhaar scheme is slowly becoming ‘desirable’. He applauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for instigating the ‘digital phase’ of India. The digital profile of India is getting impressive with each passing day. Out of a population of 130 crore people, over 121 crore possess a cell phone, 450 million have smartphones, and 122 crore people have Aadhaar Cards.