Google on Friday said an internal review has revealed that in 2014, the then UIDAI helpline number and the 112 distress helpline number were inadvertently coded into the SetUp wizard of the Android release given to OEMs for use in India and has remained there since.
"Since the numbers get listed on a user’s contact list these get transferred accordingly to the contacts on any new device," Google said in a statement.
"We are sorry for any concern that this might have caused, and would like to assure everyone that this is not a situation of an unauthorised access of their Android devices. Users can manually delete the number from their devices."
"We will work towards fixing this in an upcoming release of SetUp wizard which will be made available to OEMs over the next few weeks," Google said.
Earlier, UIDAI had clarified that they were not responsible for the number appearing in users contact list. The Cellular Operators Association also said that telecom operators were also not responsible.
The issue had come to light when a ethical hacker tweeted out that the UIDAI's old contact number was in users phone contact list automatically. This had created a furore on social media with many blaming UIDAI for the same.