DNA Edit: How safe is Aadhaar?

From the very beginning, the giant exercise of citizen enrolment had been dogged by security concerns. The nationwide collection of personal information, ostensibly for noble purposes, seemed vulnerable to hacking and pilferage. The worst fears might have come true. If media reports – that a paltry Rs 500 can fetch anyone unfettered access to the Aadhaar database – are true, it amounts to a national security breach. It has the potential to unleash an Orwellian crisis, except for the fact that the enemy could be sitting in some faraway land, toying with the lives of citizens and creating havoc of unimaginable proportions.

While the government has tried to rebut the report, the rebuttal, according to most experts, doesn’t carry much weight. After the alleged incident of breach came to light, the UIDAI, which has filed an FIR, has called it a misuse of a search facility that is intended for “the purpose of grievance redressal”. It maintained that only authorised personnel and state government officials have access to this redressal mechanism and that because of this, any misuse can and is being traced. A logic that somehow fails to pass muster, the enrolment authority and its partners need to figure out what levels of security have been employed to protect the intimate details of citizens. That sort of information in the wrong hands can create mayhem of unimaginable magnitude.

If authorised people do have access to database, how does that ensure that the data won’t be leaked or misused? Since enrolment partners too have been part of the gigantic initiative, they too must have access to this information. This means that the number of people who can enter the site are considerable, which can only serve to compromise security further. DNA has reported that the white paper issued by the committee appointed by the NDA government on the data protection framework and drafting a data protection law, has come under heavy criticism from a former SC judge, Justice M Jagannadha Rao, who had called the “rhetoric” in the white paper a ploy “to divert attention from the fundamental rights of citizens to other issues which are not relevant from the point of view of fundamental rights of citizens”.

The alleged incident of breach had got whistle-blower Edward Snowden to term it “government abuse”. This is not the first time that reports about the vulnerability of Aadhaar have surfaced. Last year, it was reported that in a Dehradun village, the birth date on the Aadhaar cards of most residents was January 1. Such mistakes were repeated elsewhere as well. In August, it emerged that three villages of Agra district had the same date of birth on their Aadhaar cards: January 1. The importance of Aadhaar has become paramount to an Indian citizen’s life. It virtually defines and legitimises his existence. This overwhelming importance attached to a single piece of document also makes it extremely vulnerable to misuse.