New Delhi: A Twitter user has claimed he sent Re 1 to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) chairman R S Sharma’s bank account through Aadhaar-Enabled Payment Service. “My donation to @rssharma3 ‘s aadhaar via BHIM to build Govt systems with better engineering to protect user privacy”, posted Anivar Aravind on his Twitter account to showcase the security issues related to Aadhaar database.
Elliot Alderson, Pushpendra Singh, Kanishk Sajnani, Anivar Aravind, and Karan Saini, who are also ethical hackers by profession, had earlier claimed to leak personal details of Sharma accessed through his information. However, UIDAI rejected the claims and said that Sharma’s details were already available on different platforms from which the users accessed
Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Sunday dismissed claims of certain elements on social media, who alleged that they accessed personal details of TRAI chief RS Sharma by using his Aadhaar credentials. UIDAI asserted that any information pertaining to Sharma wasn’t fetched from Aadhaar database or UIDAI’s servers. The organisation further clarified that the “so-called hacked” information about the TRAI chief was already available in public domain as he has been a public servant for decades and that people should not believe such fraudulent elements active on social media.
“Any information published on Twitter about RS Sharma wasn’t fetched from Aadhaar database or UIDAI’s servers. In fact, this so-called “hacked” information was already available in public domain as he being a public servant for decades and was easily available on Google and other sites,” UIDAI said in a statement.
“Sharma’s mobile number is available on National Informatics Centre’s (NIC) website as he was once Secretary IT. His date of birth is available in the Civil List of IAS Officers which is kept in public domain and his address is on Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) website because he is the Chairman. They clubbed all these inputs and claimed to have breached the Aadhaar database. Aadhaar database is fully safe and secure and no such information about Mr Sharma has been fetched from UIDAI’s severs or Aadhaar database,” the statement added.
The statement further read, “It is strictly not the issue about Aadhaar. It is a challenge of emerging digital world and personal data protection which have been sought to be addressed in the recommendations submitted by the Justice Srikrishna Committee.” Sharma on Saturday shared his 12-digit Aadhaar number on Twitter and issued a challenge to show that how mere knowledge of the number could be misused.
Sharma had tweeted: “Now I give this challenge to you: Show me one concrete example where you can do any harm to me!” The challenge by Sharma had got 577 retweets, and 745 likes by late evening. Hours later, to his surprise, his personal details like PAN number and alternative phone number were put out on public domain by ethical hackers putting a question mark on Aadhaar data security.
With Agencies input