New Delhi: There has been no breach of Aadhaar card holders’ data from the Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) database till date, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. The ministry emphasised about the safety of the world’s largest biometric identity system. “Aadhaar is the world's largest biometric identity system with approximately 134 crores live Aadhaar holders,” the ministry said. “It has completed more than 16,000 crore authentication transactions,” it added.
Responding to a question in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada said Aadhaar continues to remain secure due to strong technological and institutional safeguards put in place by the government. Aadhaar, issued by UIDAI, has around 134 crore live Aadhaar number holders. Since its launch, the system has processed more than 16,000 crore authentication transactions, making it the largest biometric identity programme in the world.
The minister said UIDAI follows a multi-layered security framework based on the “defence-in-depth” approach to protect personal data. “This means several levels of protection are built into the system, so even if one layer is compromised, others continue to safeguard the data,” the ministry stated.
“The entire system is regularly reviewed and audited to ensure it remains secure,” it added. To prevent misuse or interception, Aadhaar data is protected using advanced encryption technologies, both when it is being transmitted and when it is stored.
The Aadhaar system has been declared a protected system, which brings it under the continuous watch of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC). The agency regularly provides security advisories to strengthen UIDAI’s cybersecurity posture. In addition, an independent audit agency has been engaged to build and monitor a Governance, Risk, Compliance and Performance framework for the Aadhaar ecosystem. The minister further informed the House that UIDAI carries out continuous cybersecurity audits of its applications, including static and dynamic security testing, to identify and fix vulnerabilities at an early stage.
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