TRAI Chief RS Sharma explains why he revealed his Aadhaar number in public

AADHAAR card has been a boon for the Indian people. It has removed a lot of paperwork and red-tapism. Now, the applicants by using AADHAAR card can easily get a passport as compared to earlier times. It has become a one step solution to a lot of problems. How many times have you fretted over the dreaded list of valid documents? Ration card for gas connection, driving license for ration card, passport for driving license, pan card for passport, there was no end to this madness. If Aadhaar promises to provide us with a 1 document solution to the conundrum, by giving us a universal photo ID proof, what’s wrong in that? AADHAAR has not only raised the bar of transparency but has also created credibility in governance and identified free hoarders to eliminate duplications and fakes who have eaten into the system.

Despite all the aforementioned miles achieved by AADHAAR, in recent times we have seen that liberal and leftists are madly after the AADHAAR cards. Some of them even trended #destroyAADHAAR. They claim that AADHAAR is a threat to privacy and raised many other baseless apprehensions against AADHAAR. Fed up of their baseless criticism, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman RS Sharma shared his Aadhaar number on Twitter and challenged ethical hackers to show how only knowledge of the AADHAAR number can be misused to harm him.

As soon as he threw the challenge, some people claimed that they have accessed his private information. Ethical hackers claimed that they have found the full name of RS Sharma, his mobile number, his address, his email ID, his bank account details and many other things just by using his AADHAR number. But later on, it was found that all their claims were baseless. All the information’s which the hacker claimed to have hacked were already present in the public domain. RS Sharma is a retired IAS officer and he is in public service for a very long time, most of his details were already available in the public domain.

Now, TRAI chief has come out with a brilliant explanation as to why he disclosed his AADHAR number publicly, once again debunking and silencing his critics. RS Sharma in the Indian Express column writes, “Widespread adoption of Aadhaar has started affecting those who want to game the system for tax evasion, benami properties and other such activities. By creating a scare, their objective is to discourage people from sharing the Aadhaar number, thus allowing the vested interests to continue to play as before. To reassure everyone that Aadhaar was indeed safe to share in actual use, I disclosed my Aadhaar details. My purpose in engaging in debate is to prove by my own example that Aadhar number disclosure cannot cause any harm. Aadhaar provides only authentication services and in doing so, the UIDAI does not know where it is linked to, in a federated data model. Unfortunately, the critics of Aadhaar attribute the vulnerabilities of those domains to which Aadhaar provides service as vulnerabilities of the Aadhaar system itself, as in the EPFO case.”

TRAI chief RS Sharma further writes about his reason behind disclosing his AADHAR number publicly and he also took a jibe at the so-called hackers. He writes, “While I did reveal my own number, I am not suggesting for a moment that any of you could also publicly share your Aadhaar number. Far from it. Replicating the same challenge doesn’t prove anything more. Finally, to the so-called hackers who actually challenged me, rather than the other way around: You have found information about me that other users could have obtained by a determined Google search without the benefit of knowing the Aadhaar number. Having failed to penetrate the UIDAI’s system, you have tried to hack my email accounts (unsuccessfully) and to subscribe me to a large number of services. Many of these services take reasonable precautions and have sent me innumerable OTPs in their attempt to authenticate my ID. That’s been a waste on their part and a waste of my time. Your time is wasted too, but apparently you don’t care.”

Some people even deposited money in his account through UPI and claimed that they have hacked his bank account.

Hi friends! Back from my village. Quick update: Forget about withdrawing money from my A/c, these "Hackers" couldn't even deposit the Re 1! Looks like @TOIIndiaNews, @ZeeNews @Outlookindia @TimesNow need to change their headline! BTW well designed app @NPCI_BHIM @UPI_NPCI. pic.twitter.com/CqU3MScpMv

— RS Sharma (@rssharma3) July 30, 2018

Some more attempts to deposit money. Note: This was done using my Aadhaar number, not my "leaked" Bank Accounts! Sorry I am not open for bribes. Friends please look up the word "ethical", because this is not it. pic.twitter.com/z47Vy2dvFF

— RS Sharma (@rssharma3) July 30, 2018

Those claimed that they had supposedly accessed TRAI chief’s data are no better than NDTV’s Executive Editor Nidhi Razdan, who claimed that revealing Aadhar number is a punishable offense. But however, she missed a small point, disclosing one’s own number is a right! 

The TRAI Chief thinks that disclosing his Aadhaar number is no big deal. But under the law, such a disclosure invites 3 years in jail. So if it’s not a big deal, why is there a law against it? And how come authorities haven’t acted against Mr. Sharma yet? What a privilege

— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) July 30, 2018

People were quick to correct her

Small point, Nidhi. Disclosing one's own Aadhar number is a right. It is when others disclose it is wrong.
Personal data = Private property.

— Madhavan Narayanan (@madversity) July 30, 2018

But Nidhi was reluctant and decided not to give up but people were quick enough to respond to this as well

Retweet isn't is a disclosure, its just sharing an info which is already available ?

— Acer (@aceroholic) July 30, 2018

This whole episode shows how much liberals and leftists are constructive in their criticism of AADHAR card. Their desperate attempt to malign AADHAR again failed miserably.