Responding to concerns about data safety, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology KJ Alphons in a controversial statement said those complaining about Aadhaar have no problems stripping naked when applying for visas.
“I filled up to 10 pages for US visa form. We have absolutely no problem giving our fingerprints and getting body naked before the white man at all. When your own government asks for your name and address there is a massive revolution saying it’s intrusion in privacy,” he said.
Assuring that data in Aadhaar is safe with the government, he said there was no question of breaching this data. “What is given in Aadhaar are just name and address. Your bio-metric data is with UIDAI and let me assure you that it has not been breached, its absolutely secure. We have given authorisation to government agencies to access,” said the minister.
Earlier this week, UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey had made a powerpoint presentation in the Supreme Court to defend the government’s ambitious Aadhaar scheme.
He had said that breaking Aadhaar encryption may take “more than the age of the universe for the fastest computer on earth.” Aadhaar, with over 1.1 billion users, is the world’s biggest database. It has been facing increased scrutiny over privacy concerns following several reported instances of breaches and misuse. The Supreme Court is hearing a clutch of petitions against its constitutional validity.
The issue of Aadhar and its impact on privacy is currently being adjudicated by the apex court. A petition retired high Court judge KS Puttaswamy, had challenged this project was on the grounds that the project violated privacy rights of the citizens.
