UIDAI rebuts French researcher’s tweets

Dismisses them as ‘irresponsible’

The UIDAI on Wednesday introduced the concept of a virtual ID

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has rubbished French cybersecurity researcher Robert Baptiste’s claims on Sunday that over 20,000 Aadhaar cards are available for anybody to access online.

The researcher who operates the Twitter handle Elliot Alderson tweeted, “I will play a game tonight: How many #Aadhaar card I can found in 3 hours? Note: All the cards must be available publicly.”

In a series of tweets, Mr. Baptiste claimed to have found more than 20,000 cards in less than three hours and implied that Aadhaar is unsecured.

“In less than 3 hours, I found more than 20,000 Aadhaar cards available publicly on the web. Repeat after me: #Aadhaar is secure, #Aadhaar is secure...,” he tweeted.

The UIDAI, in a series of tweets from its handle @UIDAI, said the researcher’s claims were irresponsible. One of the tweets read, “UIDAI has dismissed the reports as irresponsible which appeared in a section of social and other media on security of Aadhaar system being questioned on account of a few Aadhaar cards reportedly put on the internet by some unscrupulous elements. 1/n.”