UIDAI dismiss reports on underground market sale of Aadhaar software

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Wednesday brushed aside reports surfaced on social media and online news channels about the Aadhaar Enrolment Software being allegedly tampered and sold for some money in the underground market.

UIDAI, in a statement, called the reports baseless and clarified that "as a part of its stringent enrolment and updating process, UIDAI matches all the biometric of a resident enrolling for Aadhaar with the biometrics of all Aadhaar holders before issuing an Aadhaar."

"No operator can make or update Aadhaar unless the resident himself or herself gives his or her biometric. Any enrolment or update request is processed only after biometric of a resident is authenticated," the statement read.

Also, before processing of the enrolment or update as stated above, enrolment operator 's biometric and other parameters are checked and only after all checks are found to be successful, enrolment or update of a resident is further processed.

"Some of the checks include a biometric check of the operator, validity of operator, enrolment machine, enrolment agency, registrar, etc. which are verified at UIDAI's backend system before further processing is done. In cases where any of the checks fail, the enrolment request gets rejected and action against such operator is taken," said UIDAI.

According to UIDAI, if at all, by some manipulation attempt at the operator's end, essential parameters such as operator's biometrics or resident's biometrics are not captured and enrolment/update packet sent to UIDAI, the same is identified by the backend system of UIDAI, and all such enrolment packets get rejected and no Aadhaar is generated.

The concerned enrolment machines and the operators are identified, blocked and blacklisted permanently from UIDAI system. In appropriate cases, police complaints are also filed for such fraudulent attempts.

UIDAI said that it has zero tolerance policy in all its processes including security and safety.

It further noted that all such operators who are found to be violating UIDAI's strict processes or who indulge in any type of fraudulent practices are blocked and blacklisted by them along with a financial penalty up to Rs. one lakh per instance. Till date, more than 50,000 operators have been blacklisted.

UIDAI has also advised people that they should stay away from unauthorized centres and approach only authorised Aadhaar enrolment centres in bank branches, post offices and Government to ensure that their enrolment/updation is done only on the authorised machines and their efforts do not get wasted as rejected enrolment/updation.