Rs33 lakh fine was imposed on former Aadhaar operator

CHANDIGARH/JIND: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has filed an FIR in case of misuse of biometrics of former Aadhaar operator Vikram to withdraw money from his two accounts.UIDAI deputy director Ashutosh (uses only first name) on Saturday gave a complaint to the Jind police “for illegal transaction using biometrics (fingerprints) of other person”. TOI had in its January 29, 2019 edition reported in detail about the misuse of biometrics of Vikram. At that time, the State Bank of India (SBI) had cautioned UIDAI about Aadhaar data breach but the authority had denied the possibility of breach and misuse of biometrics.In the FIR, Aadhaar authorities have named two persons Shamsher Singh of Jind, Haryana, and Mohd Rafi Ansari of Bihar. After doing its own initial investigation, UIDAI told police that “based on inputs provided by banks, NPCI and other reliable sources”, they found that the transactions were done using devices “identified to be operated by these two banking correspondents”. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an umbrella organization for all retail payments in the country.Acting on the FIR filed on Saturday, Jind police arrested Shamsher on Sunday. A team of UIDAI officials from Chandigarh and Delhi is also camping in the Haryana town and carrying out its own investigation.Jind SSP Ashwin Shenvi confirmed that a person has been arrested for biometric misuse on the basis of complaint by the UIDAI officials. “The accused has been identified as Shamsher Singh, a resident of Sudkain village of Uchana town of Jind. He was produced in Narwana court, which sent him to two-day police remand,” he added.The latest action by UIDAI comes after they had called in Vikram, who was employed by a company sub-contracted by SBI for Aadhaar enrollment, on February 2 for questioning about his complaint about misuse of his biometrics and the Rs 33 lakh imposed on him by the authority. There is, however, no information about any steps taken by UIDAI in case of alleged unauthorised Aadhaar cards generated using Vikram’s ID and biometrics and the Rs 33-lakh fine imposed on him.Since the TOI report, UIDAI has made some changes like introducing an additional step in the process of registering new operators. It also launched a new version of its software and instead of downloading the same through a link, as used to be the case, operators are given a copy in a password-protected pen drive and bank officials have to oversee the whole procedure.