Attempts made at infiltrating Aadhaar data: UIDAI chief

After facing flak over his direction that an FIR be registered against a scribe for reporting on data leakage, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Chief Executive Officer Ajay Bhushan Pandey on Saturday accepted that there are constant attempts being made to infiltrate the Aadhaar database of 1.19 billion people.

He added that the attempts didn’t originate only in India, but also from several countries across the world. He was speaking at a media website event and clarified that they have introduced “layers and layers of security” and managed to stop any kind of infiltration so far.

“The data has never been hacked in the past,” Pandey said, reiterating that there is no breach of data and privacy. But, he also said that no one in the world can guarantee that the data or system is “inviolable”. “I have sleepless nights every third day over hacking threats,” Pandey said.

Pandey explained that the data collected under Aadhaar cannot be used by any government or private agency for profiling of an individual, as it is prohibited under the UIDAI Act.