{"id":118844,"date":"2021-07-15T20:23:42","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T14:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=118844"},"modified":"2021-07-16T09:26:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T03:56:00","slug":"number-no-privacy-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/number-no-privacy-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Number, No Privacy Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/aadhaar-india-privacy-7405078\/\"><strong>Indian Express<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance:<\/strong> This article justifies making aadhaar, <strong>a public utility, <\/strong>against a general perception of making it confidential information.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>Some privacy proponents are of the view that the Aadhaar number should be treated as a secret or confidential number, making its retrieval an uphill task.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Is Aadhaar number confidential?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Firstly, as per the Aadhaar Act, \u201cAn Aadhaar number <strong>shall be a random number and bear no relation to the attributes<\/strong> or identity of the Aadhaar number holder.\u201d\n<ul>\n<li>It is neither secret nor confidential.\u00a0For this reason, the IT Act also does not classify the Aadhaar number as sensitive personal information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Secondly, the UIDAI was <strong>acutely aware of the possibility of an individual losing<\/strong> the Aadhaar card and the short longevity of a paper one.\n<ul>\n<li>It does not describe Aadhaar as a card, but a number, which is easy to retrieve, download, and print with no original, copy, or duplicate concept.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Why treating Aadhar numbers as confidential is not right?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Firstly, if Aadhaar number is <strong>treated as a secret or confidential number,<\/strong> its retrieval will be difficult,<\/li>\n<li>Secondly, Under the IT Act, <strong>the biometric information collected by the UIDAI for uniqueness<\/strong> is <strong>sensitive personal data.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>However, due to privacy-related issues, the UIDAI is not allowing individuals to leverage their biometrics to retrieve lost Aadhaar numbers.<\/li>\n<li>Thus, if it is confidential, searching a database of billion-plus residents without biometrics may be challenging for the ones <strong>without other unique identifiers like email and phone numbers.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Thirdly, <strong>Section 29(4) of the Aadhaar Act prohibits the publication of Aadhaar numbers<\/strong> except for purposes specified by regulations.\n<ul>\n<li>The purpose of these restrictions is that while the Aadhaar number is not confidential, its publication in various government records will make <strong>it easy to collate information. <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>However, the collation of data in the digital world is easy even otherwise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Lastly, the Aadhaar number is not an ID or a password.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u201cAnalysis of Major Concerns about Aadhaar privacy and security\u201d<\/strong> refutes that the Aadhaar number is vulnerable to surveillance attacks by the state, forgery attacks by miscreants, or database attacks by hackers.<\/li>\n<li>It says that getting access to somebody\u2019s Aadhaar number does not increase the digital vulnerability of the owner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Way forward:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Dreze and Anil suggest ways to simplify the retrieval of lost Aadhaar numbers.\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>lucid policy for recovery and easy to access support services<\/strong> is required.<\/li>\n<li>Recalling demographic data submitted to the Authority will suffice to retrieve lost numbers.<\/li>\n<li>The use of biometrics as a measure of last resort needs to be permitted.<\/li>\n<li>The UIDAI needs to act with urgency to end the woes of the less well-versed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>UIDAI should vigorously <strong>promote the adoption of the Aadhaar as a public utility,<\/strong> not just by the government but the nation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hence, Aadhaar must be seen as an instrument to empower people across domains to realize their rights and place in the digital world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Indian Express Relevance: This article justifies making aadhaar, a public utility, against a general perception of making it confidential information. Synopsis: Some privacy proponents are of the view that the Aadhaar number should be treated as a secret or confidential number, making its retrieval an uphill task. Is Aadhaar number confidential? Firstly, as per&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/number-no-privacy-threat\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Number, No Privacy Threat<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704948322},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}