UIDAI Intentionally Shared Aadhaar Data With Private Firms! Only 39% PAN Cards Linked With Aadhaar

In a shocking revelation, it has been found that UIDAI (Unique Identification Development Authority of India), the nodal authority for Aadhaar Card, intentionally and deliberately shared a large chunk of private Aadhaar data with two private firms.

Besides, as per Govt., only 39% of PAN Cards have been linked with Aadhaar as of now.

And, Govt. has said that there has been no final decision regarding linking of Aadhaar with mobile numbers.

Lots of ambiguity and doubts, and very less answers.

UIDAI Shared Aadhaar Data With Private Firms?

TOI has just revealed a stunning fact: UIDAI has intentionally shared Aadhaar data with two private firms, for testing the system and ‘proof of concept’ (PoC) studies.

If this is true, then it is blatant violation of Aadhaar Act, and cheating Indian citizens.

The basis of this report is some confidential letters accessed by TOI, according to which Aadhaar data was shared with private firms between 2012 and 2013.

First evidence is Letter # (F No 4 (4)/57/199/2013-RoB) dated September 12, 2013, which was written by UIDAI deputy director Sanjay Kumar to the head of Managed Service, HCL.

It seems HCL was appointed as Managed Service Provider for UIDAI’s Aadhaar implementation.

The letter states:

“The competent authority has approved to share 1 million records for PoC of data quality tool to be done by your partners, ie, IxSight Technologies Pvt Ltd, Mumbai…in UIDAI premises in terms of clause 1 to 18 of non-disclosure agreement (NDA) dated 6 July, 2013..”

Second evidence is letter (no 4 (4)/57/2-11-RoB/862), dated January 17, 2012, which mentions that ‘undisclosed amount of data given to Mumbai private company SAS Institute (India)’, as approved by UIDAI Head.

UIDAI has specifically stated that all these data was share under Non-Disclosure clauses, and there is nothing to worry.

In a reply to these allegations, UIDAI said,

“The said data ‘shared’ in 2013 for PoC studies was sanitised sample data created for the specific purpose and internal uses. The PoC study was done on a dedicated server of UIDAI at the UIDAI’s data centre. It was configured standalone and was not on the network. All necessary precautions like external port disabling etc were strictly observed and monitored and the system was sanitised pre and post PoC activity. All such sample sanitised data was deleted after the study. There has been no sharing, transfer or handover of any original actual data whatsoever,”

We will keep you updated as we receive more information.

Only 39% PAN Card Linked With Aadhaar

Meanwhile, IT Department has stated that out of 33 crore PAN Cards,only 13.28 crore or 39.5% have been linked with Aadhaar as of now.

There are 115 crore Aadhaar cards holders in India as of now.

Aadhaar is already mandatory for obtaining a new PAN Card or, for filing Income Tax Returns.

However, as a relaxation, those who don’t have Aadhaar card, can still file Income Tax returns, til they get their Aadhaar.