India has warned Facebook to protect the data of its citizens, but its government is struggling to control the leakage and distribution of information from its own universal identity scheme.
On Thursday, Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s information technology minister, said that Facebook was welcome in the country but that as far as its data security was concerned, “there shall be no compromise.”
Two days later, ZDNet, an American technology web site, published details of how a state-owned cooking-gas provider’s web site permits anyone to extract information about citizens from the government’s Aadhaar database.
Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identity programme has enrolled more than a billion Indians, promising to streamline delivery of welfare benefits and to ease the need for identity verification with other agencies.
Apart from welfare agencies, other arms of the government — such as Indane, the cooking-gas utility exposed by ZDNet — as well as companies such as mobile service providers routinely ask for Aadhaar numbers to verify people’s identities against the state-created database.
Privacy activists are embroiled in a lawsuit against the government, in the Supreme Court, arguing that Aadhaar can unlock various aspects of a person’s identity and violate fundamental rights to privacy.
Among other contentions, the activists have made the case that Aadhaar information is insufficiently protected, leaving the database vulnerable to hackers or to misuse by the government.
Karan Saini, a cyber-security consultant in New Delhi, discovered exactly how weak the protection was when he tested the Indane web site. Since the web site itself is linked to the Aadhaar database to verify customers, Mr Saini could tap into the database, run cycles of random 12-digit numbers, and hit upon valid Aadhaar numbers.
When the Aadhaar numbers came up, Mr Saini told ZDNet, they brought with them, from the database, the names and addresses of their holders. He was also able to see details of other services, such as bank accounts, to which the Aadhaar number were linked.
Mr Saini’s revelations are only the latest in a long line of problems with the management of Aadhaar data.
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On Twitter, over a matter of weeks, an anonymous IT security researcher — claiming to be based in France and calling himself Elliot Alderson, after the hacker in the TV show “Mr Robot” - has been calling attention to similar security flaws.
In numerous apps and web sites that use or process Aadhaar data, Alderson found breaches through which he could pull Aadhaar information.
In January, an investigation by the online Tribune newspaper claimed that a reporter was able to buy a log-in and password for just 500 rupees (Dh28). With those credentials, he could enter any Aadhaar number into the official Aadhaar portal and pull up all associated information.
The government has responded to these revelations by denying that these breaches are dangerous. “Aadhaar remains safe and secure,” a statement from the government authority administering Aadhaar said on Saturday.
But Indane also took its link to the Aadhaar database offline after ZDNet published its report, just as other government agencies did after Alderson’s exposures on Twitter.
Other diversions of Aadhaar data appear to be deliberate. Amit Goel, a senior executive at an IT company in Bengaluru, signed up for his Aadhaar a year and a half ago. He told The National that over the past six months, as concerns about data have built, he took to logging into his Aadhaar portal and browsing through the list of agencies that vet his identity — a service available to every user.
On Friday, Mr Goel found that a company named Experian had been able to validate his Aadhaar credentials. Experian, he knew, processes consumer information to generate credit ratings; the firm was founded in the United States and is now based in Ireland.
“Aadhaar should not be allowing this,” Mr Goel said. “By checking my Aadhaar, they now know that my information — my address, my phone number — is accurate. They can then sell this on to other companies. It becomes a gold mine for them.”
Yet anyone living in India has no choice but to submit to the Aadhaar system. Although the scheme is technically not mandatory, the government as well as several companies have made it impossible to access their services without providing Aadhaar details.
This “coerced” linking of Aadhaar “to all public services is designed to cause civil death,” Gopal Krishna, a member of the Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties, said. “Civil death is [a person’s] loss of all or almost all civil rights.”
“People are being compelled to share their personal and [biometric] information,” he said.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
The specs: 2018 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross
Price, base / as tested: Dh101,140 / Dh113,800
Engine: Turbocharged 1.5-litre four-cylinder
Power: 148hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 250Nm @ 2,000rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed CVT
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.0L / 100km
A new relationship with the old country
Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates
The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.
ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.
ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.
DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.
Signed
Geoffrey Arthur Sheikh Zayed
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
