AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 13445 - Millions of Indians’ financial information may have been stolen from an Aadhaar-linking site

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

Thursday, May 3, 2018

13445 - Millions of Indians’ financial information may have been stolen from an Aadhaar-linking site - Quartz

ANOTHER BREACH

Millions of Indians’ financial information may have been stolen from an Aadhaar-linking site

Written by

Maria Thomas

May 02, 2018 Quartz india

A data breach at the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), a retirement fund for salaried workers, may have exposed the personal information of millions of Indians.

On May 01, a letter from the central provident fund commissioner, V P Joy, to Dinesh Tyagi, the CEO of the government’s Common Services Centre (CSC), which provides digital services, was leaked on Twitter. Dated March 23, the letter said that the Intelligence Bureau had found that data had been “stolen by hackers exploiting the vulnerabilities prevailing in the website (aadhaar.epfoservices.com) of the EPFO.”

On the website, hosted at the National Data Centre but managed by the CSC, individuals could link their provident funds with Aadhaar, India’s biometric identity programme. While not mandatory, the EPFO had been encouraging subscribers to link their accounts with Aadhaar to improve the delivery of services.

Joy reportedly stated in the letter that the EPFO had stopped the servers of the site and discontinued its hosted services, and urged Tyagi to plug the security gaps. The website maintained confidential information such as Aadhaar and PAN numbers (taxpayer identification codes), as well as salary details.

It’s not clear how many Indians may have been affected but the EPFO has reportedly linked 34.5 million active provident fund accounts with Aadhaar. No one has claimed responsibility for the hack as yet. The Unique Identification Authority of India, which is responsible for the Aadhaar platform, has clarified that the affected website does not belong to it, and that no data breach has occured at its end.

On May 02, the EPFO released a statement saying “no confirmed data leakage has been established or observed so far.” A senior official told The Times of India newspaper that the data was completely secure and there was no need to panic.

@PIB_India An important Press Release from EPFO on certain falsehood being circulated in the Social Media platform about vulnerabilities in the EPFO data. pic.twitter.com/Hel91CW2f6

— EPF INDIA (@socialepfo) May 2, 2018

Nevertheless, a series of reported data breaches has raised concerns about the safety of personal information in the hands of the Indian government. In the period between April 2017 and January 2018 alone, 114 government portals were hacked, according to data provided to parliament by the minister of state for electronics and IT.

Over the past year, the authorities and private companies have stepped up efforts to get more and more Indians to link their Aadhaar numbers with everything from bank accounts to mutual funds to mobile phone services. This, despite several embarrassing breaches that have reportedly revealed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people. In one instance, the private data of a billion Indians were reportedly offered for sale for as little as Rs500 (less than $8). The government has, however, denied that any such leaks have taken place.

India’s supreme court is hearing petitions against the forced linking of the controversial biometric programme with other services, but millions of Indians may have already lost control of their private information.