UIDAI flip-flop over Aadhaar advisory draws experts' wrath

HYDERABAD: The Unique Identification Authority of India's move to first alert citizens about not sharing Aadhar photocopies and then subsequently retracting its statement, has kicked off a row with data security experts, former bureaucrats, activists and political leaders hitting out at UIDAI.

"In the initial release, the UIDAI admitted to long pending concerns with Aadhaar, which were debated and proven in the court. UIDAI always insisted they have improved Aadhaar's security by bringing in virtual ID, masked Aadhaar numbers, but has never promoted them enough," Kodali Srinivas of UIDAI told TOI. The data security expert added, "This release accepting privacy and security concerns with Aadhaar has been withdrawn again, because the Govenment doesn't want people to distrust and stop using Aadhaar."

The French security researher

Baptiste Robert

who exposed several Aadhaar leaks in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh said that four years ago he had warned about the issues with the Aadhaar.

Former finance secretary and IAS official,

P V Ramesh

, tweeted: "Having coordinated Aadhaar enrolment and Direct Benefit transfer schemes, e-governance with great enthusiasm, I confess it has had serious negative impact on governance systems, privacy of citizens...,"

"Government agencies made Aadhaar mandatory. Now they expect common people to argue about some government notification and risk of loosing essential services," said Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.