Questions about Aadhaar

Govt needs to be transparent about threat levels

The government’s withdrawal — in just two days — of an advisory warning citizens not to share photocopies of their Aadhaar card with hotels, cinemas, or organisations that lacked a user licence from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), citing risk of misuse, has raised more misgivings about the security of this massive database of citizen information. The sharply worded advisory had also suggested that card holders should not use public computers to download an e-Aadhaar and to log into the website and mask all but the last four digits of the number. The press statement on Sunday employed