AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 11126 - #AadhaarLeaks: A list of Aadhaar data leaks

In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.

On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.

In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.

In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.

In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.

"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Krishnaswamy

Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

11126 - #AadhaarLeaks: A list of Aadhaar data leaks - Medianama

#AadhaarLeaks: A list of Aadhaar data leaks

By Nikhil Pahwa ( @nixxin , +NikhilPahwa ) on April 24, 2017

"Therefore, there is no data leak, there is no systematic problem, but, if any one tries to be smart, the law ignites into action.” – Ravi Shankar Prasad, IT Minister, in the Rajya Sabha, on 10th April 2017

This claim from the IT Minister is factually incorrect. As the list below indicates, there is a systemic problem, and there have been data leaks by government departments, and a Minister. The law hasn’t ignited into action against them, so far. With Aadhaar being made mandatory, the data collection, storage, and leaks are likely to only increase, affecting more and more citizens.

A list of AadhaarLeaks
(a work in progress, so do point us towards more)

Note: these are instances of people whose details have already been compromised. Plugging these leaks doesn’t mean that this permanent information hasn’t already been accessed and recorded by a third-party.

April 2017:

Khadi & Village Industries Commission has an entire database online with Aadhaar numbers mentioned. This has been verified by MediaNama.
Kendriya Sainik Board Secretariat has published a file online with Aadhaar numbers. This has been verified by MediaNama.
Chandigarh Public Distribution scheme website discloses Aadhaar number. Source: @roadscholarz on Twitter.
Kerala Sevana Pension Site: Has uploaded excel sheets with details, including Aadhaar Numbers of pensioners for whom delivery has failed (for reasons including invalid bank account number, “door not opened”, Address not available and deceased, among others) for: Agricultural Labour Pension, Old Age Pension Scheme, Disability Pension Scheme). We’ve checked and verified this. Source: Anand Venkatanarayan on Twitter.
Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security: Over a million Aadhaar numbers leaked by a website run by the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security. Report by Hindustan Times.
Venkaiah Naidu, a Cabinet Minister published a photograph on Twitter, of himself, handing an oversized replica of an Aadhaar card, with Aadhaar number disclosed, to a citizen. The tweet has since been deleted. Here’s a screenshot, with personal info redacted. Naidu is the Minister for Urban Development, Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Information & Broadcasting. Here’s textile Minister Smriti Irani’s tweet which still has a photograph with Aadhaar number publicly disclosed (you’ll need to zoom in).
Kerala Scholarship Egrantz site was publishing student profiles with their Aadhaar number. This has since been fixed. Source: The News Minute. First reported by Malayalam Manorama, months ago.
Telangana government organisation Mahatma Jyotibha Phule Telangana Backward Classes Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society publishes Aadhaar data of 4000 minority students, studying in 5th to 10th standard. Source: GoNews
Bihar’s Minority Welfare Department had published information on 30,000 students, including Aadhaar number and bank account number. Source: GoNews.
Punjab Minority Welfare Department had published Aadhaar related data, as well as bank account number, for 12,000 students on its website. Source: GoNews

March 2017:

Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is leaking Aadhaar number and personal data of Swatchh Bharat Mission beneficiaries. Source: @gggodhwani on Twitter. We’ve verified this independently and have screenshots
Ministry of HRD had published excel sheets with user Aadhaar information. These have since been removed. Source: MediaNama
Cricketer MS Dhoni’s Aadhaar details were tweeted by an enrolment agency on 28th of March 2017. Source: DailyO

February 2017:

Telangana: A government agency published Aadhaar information for 500,000-600,000 children. Srinivas Kodali, who discovered this, declined to disclose the name of the agency. Update: Sources have told MediaNama that this was a Telangana agency.

(We’ll update as more instances surface, or are pointed out)

Things to remember

1. Aadhaar’s database may be secure, but its data isn’t: Prasad may have emphatically said in Parliament that “Let me say proudly that data is secure”, but that is factually incorrect. The obfuscation used often is to suggest that the database is secure, even if the data publicly available. As indicated below, several government departments have already published Aadhaar data online, making it easily accessible. In many of these instances, the data could have easily been scraped, and stored. Parallel databases some of this data can be created and stored, and replicating biometrics is going to be remarkably easy: college students have done this. Fingerprints can even be replicated from photographs. In fact, the instances mentioned above are cases of Aadhaar linked personal information.

2. Personal data isn’t just biometric data: Your demographic information, including your name, date of birth, address, fathers name and mobile number are often important personal information, which is linked to Aadhaar. Prasad might say that “anything with which you can be profiled is not there”, but this is factually incorrect: demographic information is used for profiling. This is personal information that is sufficient to identify you for several services. As an example, click here to read how BJP member and current UIDAI member Rajesh Jain, who also runs a digital marketing firm Netcore, talked about using demographic data for targeting for election campaigns.

3. Law and regulations don’t seem to be applicable to government: While the UIDAI has filed FIRs against private parties, there doesn’t appear to be any filed against government officials releasing this data. This arbitrariness raises questions of whether government departments are getting preferential treatment, and are, for all practical purposes, above the law. The rules are very clear:

“The Aadhaar number of an individual shall not be published, displayed or posted publicly by any person or entity or agency.”
“Any individual, entity or agency, which is in possession of Aadhaar number(s) of Aadhaar number holders, shall ensure security and confidentiality of the Aadhaar numbers and of any record or database containing the Aadhaar numbers.”
“…no entity, including a requesting entity, which is in possession of the Aadhaar number of an Aadhaar number holder, shall make public any database or record containing the Aadhaar numbers of individuals, unless the Aadhaar numbers have been redacted or blacked out through appropriate means, both in print and electronic form.”

(source: AADHAAR (SHARING OF INFORMATION) REGULATIONS, 2016, point 6)

4. You have no rights over your own data: When a minister violates the law, is the law applicable to them? What happens when a government department violates the law? Should the law be applicable to them? What if the law that is violated by the minister or government agency impacts you? Shouldn’t you be able to take them to court? Who polices the government and its departments here?

The Aadhaar rules only allow for a grievance redressal mechanism (page 34, section 32 here), and the Aadhaar Act explicitly denies you the right to go to court to seek damages for the release of your personal data. The Aadhaar law says: “No court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act, save on a complaint made by the Authority or any officer or person authorised by it”.

Thus, only the UIDAI can act against the government.

5. No active monitoring of Aadhaar leaks: Government appears to only dependent on social media complaints and press reports, and there doesn’t appear to be any move to prevent leakage of data at a state or agency level.

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