India
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday attacked the Central Government over Union Minister of State for Tourism K.J. Alphons' remarks on the validity of Aadhaar.
Updated : Mar 25, 2018, 07:05 PM IST
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday attacked the Central Government over Union Minister of State for Tourism K.J. Alphons's remarks on the validity of Aadhaar.
Alphons earlier on Sunday said that people are raising question over Aadhaar card validity 'but are ready to get naked before white man for a visa.'
Criticising the Minister's remarks, Yechury said the question is not about getting naked or giving biometrics to a country for the visa, the question is information is being collected on the basis of Aadhar.
He further said that during the elections government will use those data to influence it.
"The personal information of people is their personal liberty, which is also their constitutional right. This is very undemocratic and wrong. It's an attack on people's individuality," he added.
Union Minister while interacting with the media commented on the allegation of data breach and said: "You think Prime Minister is going to give your data to a private company! Don't believe such fake stories. Let me assure you that it has not been breached, it's absolutely secure. We have given authorisation to government agencies to access Aadhaar information," the minister said.
What is given in #Aadhaar are just name & address. Your bio-metric data is with UIDAI and let me assure you that it has not been breached, its absolutely secure. We have given authorisation to govt agencies to access #Aadhaar information: Union Minister KJ Alphons in Trivandrum pic.twitter.com/C9znR1eJLR
— ANI (@ANI) March 25, 2018
Earlier on Saturday, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) refuted a report about an alleged Aadhaar database breach and advised people not to be misled by such reports. According to database authority's official statement, the report, which appeared on a web portal, purportedly quoted a person claiming to be a security researcher who said that a state-owned utility company containing its customer details such as bank account numbers, consumer number, Aadhaar number (not the biometrics), etc. has some vulnerability which can be used to access a huge amount of Aadhaar data.
(With inputs from ANI)