UIDAI compromising privacy of Indians: Activist

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was compromising the privacy of Indians by giving the contracts for procuring bio-metric information about individuals to private companies, a Right to Information (RTI) activist alleged Tuesday.

Former defence scientist and RTI activist Mathew Thomas said he had sought information through RTI from the government on the origin of companies who have been given the contracts for procuring bio-metric information from people. Thomas claimed that he had not got satisfactory replies to any of his queries.

"It is strange that the country's government doesn't know the country which these companies belong to," he said at a press conference here.

The UIDAI is a government agency responsible for implementing the Aadhaar scheme.

The agency was established in February 2009 and owns and operates the Unique Identification Number database.

Thomas alleged the UIDAI had hoodwinked the Central Information Commission also.

"How can you give a contract without knowing where the company is registered," he questioned.

Thomas said there was something wrong with the entire contracting system. "The whole data is accessible to foreign countries as these companies are owned by former FBI and CIA officials."