UIDAI denies Aadhaar data breach; says DBT saved Govt Rs 49,000 crore

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) denied any data breach or misuse of Aadhaar biometric data. 

UIDAI said, "It has carefully gone into these reports and would like to emphasise that there has been no breach to UIDAI database of Aadhaar in any manner whatsoever and personal data of individuals held by UIDAI is fully safe and secure.”

Referring to an incident of misuse biometrics, UIDAI said, "It is an isolated case of an employee working with a bank's Business Correspondent's company making an attempt to misuse his own biometrics which was detected by UIDAI internal security system and subsequently actions under the Aadhaar Act have been initiated."

It added, "The e-KYC API is available in public domain AND are available only to authorised Authentication User Agencies (AUAs) and e-KYC User agencies (KUAs) through authorised Authentication Service agencies (ASAs) which have established secured network connectivity for the purpose of authentication with the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR), in compliance with the Regulations, specifications, standards and technology architecture."

Last month, UIDAI shutdown 12 websites and mobile apps (from Google Play Store) that provided Aadhaar related services illegally. 

Data compiled by UIDAI, showed that Aadhaar helped more than 4.47 crore people to open bank accounts through Aadhaar E-KYC.  

This has enabled government to do Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) under various schemes such as LPG Subsidy under Pahal, Scholarships, MNREGA, and Pensions directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries eliminating corruption, diversion, and leakages by middlemen etc. 

In a span of two and half years,  through  Aadhaar based Direct Benefit Transfers the government has saved over Rs 49,000 Crore. 

To strengthen the use of biometrics data, the UIDAI has decided to  have registered devices for capturing biometrics data and further that such biometrics will be encrypted at the point of capture itself. 
UIDAI said, "It  has significantly updated its security parameters at new threats in cyber space.  It also undertakes security audits and takes necessary steps to augment its security features. "