TRAI chief puts his head on the line to show how secure Aadhaar is

In a firm attack on the critics of the Aadhaar linkage schemes and the propagators of the myth that Aadhaar has a fragile security system due to which concerned data can be easily leaked, TRAI chief R S Sharma disclosed his Aadhaar number in a tweet. He openly challenged haters to give one concrete example of how any harm could be done to him.

The entire controversy started when The Print published an article quoting R S Sharma as stating that Aadhaar data is completely safe and sound and that all reports which suggest that Aadhaar data is vulnerable are false. Sharma had also asserted that Aadhar and IndiaStack, a digital interface that allows government and businesses to utilise digital infrastructure are leading innovations and that there is no parallel to them anywhere else in the world. Then a twitter user tagged R S Sharma and demanded that since he has ‘paid salaries’ to the TRAI chief for all these years, he should share his personal details on twitter. On being met with silence, the user posted a follow up tweet in which he called upon the TRAI chief to publish his Aadhaar details if he was so sure that it is safe and sound.

What surprised everyone was that R S Sharma did not shy away and actually tweeted his Aadhaar details. R S Sharma not only silenced this user but all the critics of the Aadhaar linkage schemes who have been citing privacy concerns and have been spreading misinformation that Aadhaar imperils citizens’ privacy and critical data. The user who had originally challenged R S Sharma seemed stunned by the counter challenge thrown by the TRAI chief. He did not manage to come up with any proof of Aadhaar’s vulnerability. In fact, he did not even have a reply to Sharma’s counter challenge. He only shared an absurd and meaningless tweet to ‘lawyers and journalists’ on how to proceed with the Aadhaar number provided by the TRAI chief.

One twitter user even tried to claim that he was able to access Sharma’s mobile number on the basis of his Aadhaar number. But it was soon disclosed by a popular Twitter handle @AndColorPocket that the TRAI chief’s mobile number is already available in the public domain. Therefore, his claim stood exposed. Apart from this, none of the naysayers and mavericks were able to prove anything when they actually got a chance to show how data is fragile, weak, vulnerable and easily accessible. With this it has become clear that much of the criticism around Aadhaar is baseless and politically motivated. There is not even an iota of truth and genuineness when it comes to all the claims of Aadhaar’s vulnerability doing the rounds. It is only a politically motivated attempt to malign the much needed database and the government.

Aadhaar has emerged as a significant instrument of good governance in the recent past. It has also emerged as a valuable element as far as Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) is concerned in order to plug leakages which plague the welfare schemes initiated by the government. In fact, it has been reported that Aadhaar has helped the government save Rs. 90,000 crores. It is clear that there are certain elements which are not happy with this success and are leaving no stone unturned in airing misinformation and myths about the entire scheme.