Aadhaar: Security Is Going To Be A Big Concern, Says Nilekani

Former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani has admitted that there is a concern for security surrounding Aadhaar.

Economic Times quotes Nilekani saying that while Aadhaar has not been hacked yet, “but people (hackers) have tried to get users to do an OTP and give their details.” Elaborating, Nilekani told the newspaper that while that is not a ‘hack’, “security is going to be a big concern in all these things.”

Former Infosys CEO Nilekani is also the former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI, the agency responsible for the 12-digit biometric code Aadhaar.

His statements come at a time when there have been concerns surrounding the safety of citizens’ data with Aadhaar being pushed by the current government. ET says Nilekani was speaking at the CK Prahalad Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru where he also said that security systems need to keep pace in an increasingly digital world.

A week ago, an IIT post-graduate was arrested for accessing the UIDAI server illegally by developing a mobile app which provides for Aadhaar e-KYC verification without authorisation.

According to the police, 31-year-old Abhinav Srivastava, who lives in Bengaluru and hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested on August 1 based on a complaint from the Deputy Director of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

The post-graduate from IIT-Kharagpur had developed a mobile application for Aadhaar e-KYC verification and hosted it on Google play store. To support the mobile app, Aadhaar related information, housed by the NIC server, was illegally accessed, the police said.

The UIDAI data was accessed through the 'e-Hospital' application and its server, they said.

Srivastava was the co-founder of mobile payments firm Qarth Technologies Pvt Ltd, which was acquired by cab aggregator Ola in 2016. He was employed with Ola as a software development engineer.

Accusing Srivastava of committing a "very serious" crime by exposing the private information of citizens, police said the city crime branch along with cyber crime sleuths arrested him.

With Agency Inputs

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