NEW DELHI: Dismissing reports of misuse of biometrics
data, the government today said Aadhaar-based authentication is "fully
safe and secure".
Moreover, subsidy transfers linked to Aadhaar
has led the exchequer to save Rs 49,000 crore during the last two-and-half
years.
According to Unique Identification Authority of
India (UIDAI), there has been no incident of misuse of Aadhaar biometrics leading
to identity theft and financial loss when more than 400 crore Aadhaar authenticated
transactions took place during the last five years, it said.
UIDAI also said that it has carefully gone
through various reports and would like to emphasise that there has been no
breach to UIDAI database of Aadhaar in any manner whatsoever and personal data
of individuals held by UIDAI is fully safe and secure.
Moreover, subsidy transfers linked
to Aadhaar has led the exchequer to save Rs 49,000 crore during the last
two-and-half years.
According to Unique Identification Authority of
India (UIDAI), there has been no incident of misuse of Aadhaar biometrics
leading to identity theft and financial loss when more than 400 crore Aadhaar
authenticated transactions took place during the last five years, it said.
UIDAI also said that it has carefully gone
through various reports and would like to emphasise that there has been no
breach to UIDAI database of Aadhaar in any manner whatsoever and personal data
of individuals held by UIDAI is fully safe and secure.
"Aadhaar-based authentication
is robust and secure as compared to any other contemporary systems. Aadhaar
system has the capability to inquire into any instance of misuse of biometrics
and identity theft and initiate action," it said.
With reference to an incident of misuse of
biometrics reported in a newspaper, UIDAI said that it is an isolated case of
an employee working with a bank's Business Correspondent's company making an
attempt to misuse his own biometrics which was detected by UIDAI internal security system and
subsequently actions under the Aadhaar Act were initiated.
Responding to media reports about on-boarding of
the ecosystem partners, UIDAI said that the regulations under the Aadhaar Act
strictly regulate the on-boarding, functioning including the data sharing
restrictions imposed on the companies which want to use Aadhaar information.
UIDAI further said that Aadhaar is
an important tool of good governance and empowerment of people and has helped
more than 4.47 crore people open bank accounts through Aadhaar e-KYC.
It has enabled the government to do Direct
Benefit Transfers under various schemes including LPG subsidy and has helped
the exchequer save over Rs 49,000 crore during the last two and half years.
Aadhaar-based Public Distributions System is
benefiting people by ensuring that their food grain entitlement are given only
to the deserving beneficiaries and are not cornered by unscrupulous and corrupt
elements, it said.
With reference to reports that there are no
extant regulations available to prevent storage and misuse of e-KYC data, while
citing instances like capturing IRIS from high resolution photograph, UIDAI
said that there are stringent provisions in the Aadhaar (Authentication)
Regulations governing the usage of e-KYC data including storage and sharing,
resident consent being paramount in both the cases.
Any unauthorised capture of IRIS or fingerprints or
storage or replay of biometrics or their misuse is a criminal offence under the
Aadhaar Act, it said.
//copy// - ET
