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The government’s Aadhaar card programme has been drawing lot of flak from citizens for its vulnerability in terms of privacy of data collected at the time of enrolment.
The latest to get hit by the issue is cricketer MS Dhoni whose personal details got accidentally made public by one of the private e-governance agencies - Common Services Center - assisting the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to process Aadhaar applications.
The agency that took up Dhoni’s Aadhaar application tweeted out multiple images of the ace cricketer going through the usual process of biometric verification. One of the tweets, which tagged the Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Ace Cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his family get their Aadhaar updated at VLE Mariya Farooqui's CSE at Ranchi, Jharkhand," while a second image contained all the personal details of Dhoni collected by the agency.
Although it was later withdrawn by the agency, the former Indian captain's wife Sakshi Dhoni promptly took up the issue with Prasad. “Is there any privacy left? Information of Aadhaar card, including application, is made public property,” she tweeted.
After a series of follow-on tweets where Prasad tried to get more clarity on the issue, he tweeted assuring her of strict action against the offenders. "Thanks for bringing this to my notice. Sharing personal information is illegal. Serious action will be taken against this," he said in a follow-up tweet.
Meanwhile, CSC tweeted an image of Dhoni, saying, “Former India cricket captain MD Dhoni updated his Aadhaar details with a home visit by a CSC VLE. A fan moment for Ahsan Ali.”
The Aadhaar has often been accused as being an alleged surveillance tool and easy information database for marketers. The Aadhaar Act does not pack in any restriction on any agency or person who is willing to pay the fees for information on any citizens’ identity.
For example, a telecom company or a bank can use anyone’s Aadhaar number to access all their identity information, except the biometrics.
While the Supreme Court has made it amply clear that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory to avail welfare schemes and acknowledged that collection of information by private agencies is risky, it has not taken any tough decisions to limit leaks.
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