UIDAI rejected a report on Tuesday (May 02) about an online leak of Aadhaar numbers and bank accounts linked to them.
A research report by a Bangalore-based organization, Centre for Internet and Society revealed that poor information security at four government portals linked with social welfare schemes exposed personal data of 13 crore people including bank account details of around 10 crore.
The first two belong to the rural development ministry: the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP)’s dashboard and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)’s portal.
"There is no data leak and this particular report does not pertain to UIDAI," said A B P Pandey, CEO of UIDAI. "While Aadhaar numbers are available, the biometric information is not. The biometric details are in safe custody. The leaked databases do not pose a real threat to the people whose information is publicly available because the Aadhaar number cannot be misused without biometrics," said a government official.
Another official said that Aadhaar number is not confidential just as bank account number which is mentioned in cheque books and shared with a lot of people. The last two months have seen a wave of data leaks, mostly due improper information security practices, from various central government and state government departments.
