New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday alleged that the sanctity of the unique identification system was put at risk. The allegation comes amid reports of an alleged breach of the Aadhaar database.

The national party’s remarks come at a time when there is an investigation by HuffPost India that revealed that the Aadhaar database, which has got details of biometrics and personal information of more than one billion Indians,” had been compromised by a software patch which disables critical security features of the software used to enroll new Aadhaar users”.

The report said that without any authorization, any per from any location of the world can generate Aadhaar ID by using the patch that comes at a cost of Rs. 2,500.

“The hack of the Aadhaar enrolment software jeopardizes the sanctity of the Aadhaar database. We hope the authorities will take the appropriate moves to secure future enrolments and verify the suspect enrolments,” the Congress said in a tweet.

Last month there was a controversy over the issue of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)’s number was found to be stored on many people’s phone without their knowledge and over this French security expert Elliot Alderson was on the forefront raising the issue. And this time too, he joined the conversation going on over the allegation and asked the UIDAI to work with the hackers to come out with a solution to stop the breach of data.

“I repeat it: NOTHING IS UNHACKABLE. It does apply for Aadhaar. UIDAI, it’s never too late. Listen and work with hackers instead of threatening them. History is looking to you,” he said.

As per the HuffPost report, “the patch lets a user bypass critical security features such as biometric authentication of enrolment operators to generate unauthorized Aadhaar numbers”.

According to the report, the software’s GPS security feature is also compromised allowing anyone from any location in the world to enroll users in the system.

“The patch reduces the sensitivity of the enrolment software’s iris-recognition system, making it easier to spoof the software with a photograph of a registered operator, rather than requiring the operator to be present in person,” the report said.

The report claimed that the patch was analyzed by three internationally reputed experts and two Indian analysts all of whom confirmed that the patch can be used to breach the Aadhaar software.

There have been controversies over the issue of Aadhaar (UIDAI) since the system started. The issue involves concerns over privacy which were debated in the parliament and the issue was even taken to the Supreme Court.

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