FIR filed against newspaper, The Tribune for story on Aadhaar breach

B.M.Patnaik, a deputy director at the Unique Identification Authority of India, the sole authority on Aadhaar has filed a First Information Report against The Tribune” and its reporter Rachna Khaira for misreporting the breach of biometric data of Aadhaar holders.

The Chandigarh based English daily newspapeer,“The Tribune”had carried a shocking story on how anonymous sellers, operating through messaging service WhatsApp, were allegedly providing access to details of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar holders.

Welcome to the age of gagging the media

The FIR which is lodged in the Cyber cell of police also names the people who the reporter contacted during the course of her reporting. “The above-mentioned persons have unauthorisedly accessed the Aadhaar ecosystem in connivance of the criminal conspiracy,” BM Patnaik, who works with the UIDAI’s logistics and grievance redressal department has said in his complaint.

From the time of its inception, Aadhaar under the headship of the UIDAI has functioned in a highly opaque manner, not answering any RTI queries and marching on, linking itself to many government welfare schemes, while instances of breaches of the highly confidential data abound in the public sphere.

Meanwhile, the numerous petitions against the anti-privacy nature of Aadhaar are still to be heard by the Supreme court.