Inside a nondescript building in the eastern part of Bangalore stands a server farm, a cluster of computers. It is a building without a sign and visitors are strictly forbidden. In this building sits the data centre of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Location of the centre: "somewhere in Whitefield suburbs", is all UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani would tell this newspaper.

The centre forms the back support of what has just become the world's largest biometric identification system. At last count, there were 18 crore (180 million) enrollments, and of these, a tenth of India's population already has an official identity number.

The UIDAI just surpassed the other large biometric databases in the world, including that of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and of US-VISIT, the biometric identity system of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Other than its own staff, even other UIDAI employees need to provide bonafide reasons 24 hours in advance for their visit to be cleared by the data centre head. Only authorised visitors can walk past the armed perimeter security and go through layers of metal detectors and personal checks.

Security is a primary need as hackers are getting savvier by the day. Data is not just an extremely saleable commodity in the black market but also a vulnerable target to cyber terrorism.

"The data centre is a very cold, dark place," described Pramod Verma, chief technology architect at UIDAI. It is also a digital fortress with several layers of security, he said.

The data centre's physical dimensions are not impressive: a 2,000 sq ft room housing an array of about 700 computers, a testament to the rapid miniaturisation of technology. But within those computers is a humongous biometric database  the digital fingerprint scans, iris scans, photographs and personal details of over 18 crore Indians and counting.

The data centre networks with the UIDAI's technology centre located in the neighbouring Marathahalli Outer Ring Road. Together, they are the heart of India's historic, though controversial, programme to provide each resident a unique ID number called AADHAR.

Currently, the data centre has 20 peta bytes of storage capacity. More physical and digital storage space is being added as the UIDAI targets 20 crore enrollments by March. Each peta byte equals one quadrillion bytes (one million giga bytes). For comparison, last year IBM reportedly built the largest storage server array with a capacity of 120 peta bytes.

"The data centre moves data very, very fast," Verma said. Around the country, 27,000 enrolling stations daily pump data in the form of scans and demographic details. At current speeds, all enrollments of the country's residents are scheduled to be complete by 2014.

The UIDAI programme has been in the eye of several controversies, including a question mark over data privacy and the fact that the data centre is currently located in a rented space.

But UID officials say that all data collected from individuals at the enrollment centres travels in 2048-bit digitally encrypted packets all the way to the data centre. Decrypted data is never stored anywhere on a disk.

The data centre itself is a highly digitally-secured facility with a DMZ, computer jargon for 'demilitarized zone', where several computers run outside the firewall to intercept traffic to check for Trojans and viruses. The security consists of firewalls, an IDS (intruder detection system) and an IPS (intruder prevention system).

The centre is heterogeneous with different types and brands of computers, drives, switches and routers banded together with computing efficiency and pricing in mind. "UIDAI has no vendor lock-in to technology, company or software," said Verma.

It is also a very green data centre, according to him. In a green data centre, the lighting, electrical, mechanical and computer systems are designed so that they are energy efficient and cause minimum environmental damage.

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