Aadhaar breach: Rs 500 is all it takes to get details of a billion Indians

A report claims to have bought access to a cheap software, which can be used to print the Aadhaar card of any individual

Anonymous sellers on Whatsapp are said to be providing ‘unrestricted’ access to the Aadhaar details of more than a billion Indians for just Rs 500, according to an investigation by The Tribune on Wednesday. The paper also  claims to have bought access to a software for Rs 300, which can be used to print the Aadhaar card of any individual by entering their Aadhaar number.

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identification number that is issued by the UIDAI( Unique Identity Development Authority of India) to every resident Indian citizen, after recording biometric and demographic information about an individual.

The report says that the racket may have started when over 300,000 Village Level Operators(VLEs), earlier mandated to make Aadhaar cards across India were rendered jobless when post offices and banks were given the job instead, in November 2017. Over 100,000 VLEs, sensing an opportunity to make easy money, might have gained illegal access to UIDAI data and provided “Aadhaar services” to common people for a charge, including the printing of Aadhaar cards.

If true, this would spell a serious breach of national security as the UIDAI has linked Aadhaar to individuals’ fingerprints and iris scans. The government’s unfettered access to citizens biometric details has already been in the centre of much debate in the civil society.

Earlier, in August, a Supreme Court judgement had deemed ‘privacy’ as a fundamental right, while dealing with a batch of petitions that claimed the illegality of Aadhaar based on the fundamental right to life and liberty. Most importantly, the government’s argument that Aadhaar will be a useful instrument to aid national security be questioned. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, in his judgement on the case, had noted that that big data-fuelled “profiling can also be used to further the public interest and for the benefit of national security”.

This is not the first time that reports of an Aadhaar breach have emerged. A Right to Information response by the UIDAI in November revealed that personal details of many Aadhaar users were made public on 200 central and state government website. The websites were found to have displayed “the list of beneficiaries along with their name, address, other details and Aadhaar numbers for information of general public”, the authority said. However, the details were removed, after the goof-up was brought to their notice………read more

This Indian city is turning a mountain of trash into cash

India’s cities are among the largest garbage generators in the world, producing about 62 million tonnes of waste every year

It’s 6.30 a.m. in the Indian city of My s uru and the streets are full of the sound of whistles blowing as workers in olive green aprons and rubber gloves begin a door-to-door search. They have come to collect one of India’s biggest untapped resources: garbage.

The about 1 million citizens in the southern city, also known as Mysore, are in the vanguard of a campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clean up the country and recycle rubbish into compost and electricity. The task is gargantuan, but the approach in My s uru — combining the availability of cheap labor with traditional methods and modern plants — shows how the country might overturn its image of ubiquitous trash.

India’s cities are among the largest garbage generators in the world, producing about 62 million tonnes of waste every year. Only about 82 per cent of it is collected and only 28 per cent of that is treated and processed. Most go into landfills, open dump sites or is just left on the ground, often clogging rivers and drains.

The recent rapid expansion of India’s economy has moved its reputation for poor sanitation and dirty streets into a full-blown crisis. Rising wealth and consumption, and growing urbanization could cause the amount of urban solid waste to increase five-fold by 2051, according to a paper published in 2016 by researchers at New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University.

Cities that can find an economic way to deal with the issue could reap a windfall in terms of investment and the benefits of a healthier community.

“We don’t want waste to be waste; we want to get wealth out of it,” says D.G. Nagaraj, health officer of the Mysuru City Corporation. “Zero landfill is our motto.”

As the morning whistle sounds in Mysuru, residents emerge from their homes with two bins — compostable and non-compostable — for the sanitary workers, who load up 400 push carts and 170 auto-tippers to go to nine recycling centers and a compost plant. At the centers, the trash is segregated, with reusable items such as bottles, metal, footwear and plastic cups being sold to scrap dealers. The remainder is composted and sold to farmers.

Seeking Scrap

“Waste is not a problem if it is converted into money,” said D. Madegowda, 75, one of the volunteers who set up a recycling plant near a graveyard in Kumbar Koppalu, where scrap items like used rubber gaskets are offered for sale.

So far, the local government has managed to get the system to work by appealing to the public. The city, famed for its palaces of kings and maharajas, runs regular campaigns including morning radio jingles, WhatsApp messages, street plays, and pamphlets. Government employees go door-to-door to create awareness among residents.

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The recycling units set up mostly by local residents or non-government organizations cover their costs through the sale of scrap and compost. Of the 402 tonnes of waste Mysuru produces each day, close to a quarter is processed by these centres and about half is treated at the compost plant.

For the waste-to-fertilizer plant, Mysuru charges an annual fee plus takes 5 per cent of the finished compost as payment. It also collects a solid-waste management levy from residents along with the property tax to help subsidize the program.

“Separation of waste is very important, but it’s only one part of the story,” said Swati Sambyal, a programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi.“Most of the Indian municipalities don’t have enough manpower, vehicles, infrastructure and revenue to support the segregation.”……….read more