After an Aadhaar volunteer's "fan moment" after he prepared cricketer M.S. Dhoni's Aadhar card has become awkward for the government, Union Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said Aadhar is fully safe.
At a time when Aadhar is confronting many questions, Dhoni's wife Sakshi drew Prasad's attention to the fact that a tweet featuring an Aadhaar volunteer with the cricketer also included a screenshot of his Aadhaar page, unwittingly making his details public.
With the Twitter exchange redirecting media glare on the scheme, Prasad today asserted that he has assured Sakshi, adding that the excited youth should be made to understand that such things are not repeated.
"Dhoni is not only a cricketer, I consider him as a hero. I respect him a lot. What I have got to know is the man who made the Aadhar got excited to click the Aadhar photo with Dhoni. Personal details have not been revealed. But still, I have assured his wife that this matter will be looked into. Aadhar is fully safe. We want to assure that details of anyone cannot get revealed," he told the media.
In the controversial tweet that has since been deleted, the Common Service Centre had said: "Former India Cricket Captain @msdhoni updated his Aadhaar details with a home visit by a CSC VLE. A fan moment for Ahsan Ali." The minister was tagged in that post.
Allegations of data security breach in Aadhaar have been in the headlines lately, with the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI suspending the authentication services of Axis Bank over concerns about biometrics data being saved illegally.
The rules do not allow anyone to store data taken for Aadhaar.
The UIDAI, which has issued 112 crore Aadhaar numbers, insists that its database is safe.
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