Shocking U-turn on Aadhaar! Gemalto withdraws report claiming data breach

Digital security firm Gemalto Thursday withdrew its report which claimed that data breach incidences in India were the second highest globally on account of compromise in the Aadhaar database.

"Gemalto profusely regrets on its Breach Level Index Report 2018 and the subsequent press release issued in India on 15th October where it has by mistake taken into account an unverified news article about alleged Aadhaar data breach," the company said in a statement. 

The report issued on Monday had claimed that almost 1 billion records were compromised in Aadhaar breach incident, including name, address and other personally identified information. Gemalto said that it has updated its Breach Level Index Report 2018 and wants to make it clear that it was an error in the above said report which has been corrected. 

"...All concerned should take note of it that we have not been able to track any verified or substantiated data breach of Aadhaar database of UIDAI. As a result, Gemalto has withdrawn this alleged data from the Breach Level Index. Any inconvenience caused to UIDAI is deeply regretted," the statement said. 

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In the report Gemalto claimed that there were 945 data breaches led to 4.5 billion data records being compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018 out of which over 1 billion data records have been exposed in India. The company issued correction saying that there were 944 data breaches that led to 3.2 billion data records being compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018.