India’s ID Database with data of 1.2 billion people reportedly breached with just $8

India which is emerging as the next hub of technology in Asia has developed a comprehensive online database to gather personal details of its citizens. As of now, this centralized govt database named Aadhaar has been breached, as claimed by a local news outlet The Tribune.

Aadhaar comprises of the comprehensive data of Indian citizens such as names, addresses, date of birth, mobile numbers, all 10 fingerprint scans, iris scans, and more. The report published yesterday by The Tribune claims that their reporters paid Rs. 500 of Indian currency equals to $8 to a person named Anil Kumar for accessing data. Kumar created an account on Aadhar for the reporters, who were able to get access to the demographics of more than 1.2 billion Indians.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the govt’s agency behind the development of Aadhaar told the Tribune that the access was illegal and a major security breach.

Whereas, another report by the Quint, another local media outlet affirms that anyone can create an administrator account on the website and can access the data on Aadhar as long as they are invited by an existing administrator.

Within hours of the report by the Tribune, India’s CM-led political party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rejected the news and called it as “fake news.”

UIDAI also denied the breach in a statement given to BuzzFeed, saying, “Aadhaar data including biometric information is fully safe and secure.”

Meanwhile, critics of UIDAI program have reacted strongly, claiming the breach to be a real one, as they pointed out a major design flaw in the development of Aadhaar.