Our Act Of Filing FIR Should Not Be Viewed As Targeting The Media: UIDAI

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) today sought to defend itself over the filing of an FIR against the Tribune journalist who reported the alleged Aadhaar data breach saying that it should not be viewed as targeting the media.

In a brief statement published on Twitter, UIDAI said, “We respect Free Speech including the Freedom of Press and Media. However, our act of filing an FIR with full details of the incident should not be viewed as targeting the media or the whistle-blowers or shooting the messenger.”

UIDAI’s statement has come immediately after the Editors Guild of India condemned the FIR against the journalist.

In a press statement issued, the Guild said the UIDA action to have the Tribune reporter booked by the police is clearly meant to browbeat a journalist whose investigation on the matter was of great public interest.

READ ALSO: Aadhaar Data Breach Report: Editors Guild Condemns FIR Against Tribune Journalist

“It is unfair, unjustified and a direct attack on the freedom of the press. Instead of penalising the reporter, UIDAI should have ordered a thorough internal investigation into the alleged breach and made its findings public. The Guild demands that the concerned Union Ministry intervene and have the cases against the reporter withdrawn apart from conducting an impartial investigation into the matter,” the Guild said.

However, UIDAI, in its latest statement said, This is a case in which even though there was no breach of Aadhaar biometric database, it is for the act of unauthorized access, criminal proceedings have been initiated.”

Earlier, an FIR was registered by deputy director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) against The Tribune newspaper and its reporter, Rachna Khaira, for a report published earlier this week. The FIR also named Anil Kumar, Sunil Kumar and Raj, all of whom were mentioned in The Tribune report as people Khaira contacted in the course of her reporting.

The Tribune report had revealed that details of Aadhaar is easily accessible, that too just by paying Rs 500.

According to the newspaper, its reporter purchased a service by anonymous sellers on WhatsApp and paid Rs 500 via Paytm to an agent of the group running a racket. The agent then created a “gateway” for the reporter and gave a login ID and password, thus giving unrestricted access to details, including name, address, postal code (PIN), photo, phone number and email, of more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers submitted to the UIDAI, the Aadhaar issuing body.

Not only this, the newspaper team paid another Rs 300, for which the agent provided “software” that could facilitate the printing of the Aadhaar card after entering the Aadhaar number of any individual.

Denying the allegation, the UIDAI statement said that it has "given the said search facility for the purpose of grievance redressal to the designated personnel and state government officials to help residents only by entering their Aadhaar number/EID".

"UIDAI maintains complete log and traceability of the facility and any misuse can be traced and appropriate action taken. The reported case appears to be instance of misuse of the grievance redressal search facility. As UIDAI maintains complete log and traceability of the facility, the legal action including lodging of FIR against the persons involved in the instant case is being done," said the statement.

Earlier also, the UIDAI had filed an FIR against a CNN-News 18 journalist after the television network aired a segment showing that it was possible to obtain two separate Aadhaar enrollment numbers with the same set of biometrics.Last year, the Delhi police had registered the first case under violation of Aadhaar Act 2016 against Sameer Kochhar, an entrepreneur-writer who runs a Gurgaon-based think tank called Skoch Development Foundation , for allegedly spreading rumours on various social networking sites that the Aadhaar ecosystem is vulnerable. The complaint said that wrote a misleading article against the Aadhaar ecosystem and also uploaded a video to substantiate his claims.

The UIDAI found the video and the article to be misleading and filed an FIR with the cyber cell of the Delhi police. In his article Kochhar had claimed that the Aadhaar ecosystem is flawed, vulnerable, has very poor security, and can be easily hacked.

He had also written that India was being taken for a ride by those with vested interest on Aadhaar enabled payment. He has further stated that the national security is at stake.