A government department in Andhra Pradesh put the Aadhaar data of over 1.34 lakh citizens online along with information such as their caste and religion, cybersecurity researcher Srinivas Kodali alleged on Tuesday. Caste and religion are not part of citizens’ records in the biometric database.
The website has masked the Aadhaar numbers on its publicly-available databases after Kodali reported it, he tweeted.
Kodali said the Unique Identification Authority of India has not linked citizens’ Aadhaar data with their caste, religion and occupation, but other government departments seem to be doing so.
He posted a screenshot of individuals’ data on Twitter, and wrote: “Here is proof that UIDAI has no idea what all is being linked to your unique ID.”
The screenshot showed a table with data sorted in columns such as Aadhaar, bank branch, bank code and account number, father’s name, address, gram panchayat, mobile number, ration card number, occupation, religion and caste information. The website also appears to have a search feature that can help users generate targeted lists of people.
Kodali said the database was available publicly and he did not use hacking or unauthorised access, Medianama reported. He said there was no way to report such data leaks to the government or the UIDAI.
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