UIDAI files FIR against ‘The Tribune’ reporter for story on Aadhaar data leak
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has filed an FIR in Delhi against ‘The Tribune’ and its reporter. Rachna Khaira. The newspaper reporter had claimed through a news article about how people’s aadhaar card information is being sold in exchange for money.
This FIR includes the reporter’s composition and the names of the people she had contacted. Delhi’s Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) has confirmed the news of FIR to ‘The Tribune’.
The Editors Guild of India has criticized lodging an FIR in this case.
The FIR is registered under section 419 of FIR IPC (cheating, forgery), section 420 (fraud), section 468 (forgery) and Section 471 (use of fake documents) and section 66 of the IT Act and section 36/37 of the Aadhar Act. After the news was published in TheTribune, UIDAI had said that the news of obtaining biometric data was false. The office of Chandigarh based UIDAI has also sent a letter to The Tribune.
It is said in this letter that it is not possible for anyone to get the biometric data of Aadhaar. Through this letter, the newspaper has been asked whether its reporter saw or received a record of fingerprint or eyescan of anybody? How did the newspaper journalist get information about the number of Aadhaar numbers and what were the Aadhaar numbers?
UIDAI has said that if these questions are not answered by January 8th then it will be assumed that no fingerprint or eyed scans were recorded. The Tribune reporter had claimed that she bought a service at 500 rupees from a WhatsApp contact and got access to about 1 billion Aadhaar cards.
