Yet another controversy erupts in Andhra Pradesh where a government undertaking and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) have drawn no less flak for allowing some sensitive personal details of around 1.3 lakh people to go to the public domain.
Initial blame goes to the Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation as it released the Aadhaar numbers of 1.3 lakh beneficiaries along with the banking details, caste, religion, mobile numbers and what not triggering an escalating controversy. But the cyber experts, who found the huge fault have refused to pin the blame on UIDAI saying that Aadhar has hardly any link with these sensitive details and pushed responsibility to other government department.
They have observed that the biometric database does not have any records of the citizens personal sensitive details.
The website in question, however, has covered these details immediately after Srinivas Kodali, an independent cyber expert, brought it to the government’s notice with a tweet.
He, further, in his tweet, flashed a screenshot of the personal and sensitive details in the public domain in the website to substantiate his revelations. But he confirmed zero role of UIDAI in these bungling.
What is more worrisome is the search feature in the website page making it easy for the users to extract personal details of anybody targeted. But there is hardly any option to reach either the government or the UIDAI with the complaint.
Stunned by the revelations of privacy breach, the Andhra Pradesh Government said it would further track the beneficiaries only with the Aadhaar number and not with other sensitive details to protect the privacy of the individuals.
The government has every right to extract the personal sensitive data of an individual which include mobile no, bank account no IFSC code, father’s name, village and panchayat.
But under no circumstance these are not allowed to be made public. This was what UIDAI told the Supreme Court.
Initial blame goes to the Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation as it released the Aadhaar numbers of 1.3 lakh beneficiaries along with the banking details, caste, religion, mobile numbers and what not triggering an escalating controversy. But the cyber experts, who found the huge fault have refused to pin the blame on UIDAI saying that Aadhar has hardly any link with these sensitive details and pushed responsibility to other government department.
They have observed that the biometric database does not have any records of the citizens personal sensitive details.
The website in question, however, has covered these details immediately after Srinivas Kodali, an independent cyber expert, brought it to the government’s notice with a tweet.
He, further, in his tweet, flashed a screenshot of the personal and sensitive details in the public domain in the website to substantiate his revelations. But he confirmed zero role of UIDAI in these bungling.
What is more worrisome is the search feature in the website page making it easy for the users to extract personal details of anybody targeted. But there is hardly any option to reach either the government or the UIDAI with the complaint.
Stunned by the revelations of privacy breach, the Andhra Pradesh Government said it would further track the beneficiaries only with the Aadhaar number and not with other sensitive details to protect the privacy of the individuals.
The government has every right to extract the personal sensitive data of an individual which include mobile no, bank account no IFSC code, father’s name, village and panchayat.
But under no circumstance these are not allowed to be made public. This was what UIDAI told the Supreme Court.