Aadhaar leak: Privacy breach can dent major scheme, says Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today raised serious concern over the leakage of personal data of lakhs of citizens and asked government not to compromise on privacy and security concerns of Aadhaar.

"Shocking breach of security that has left lakhs of innocent citizens extremely vulnerable.

"I am proud that we took the lead on Aadhaar, but let us not compromise a great initiative by turning a blind eye to major privacy and security concerns," he said on Twitter.

There are reports of digital identities of more than a million citizens have been compromised by a programming error on a website maintained by the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security.

The UIDAI, meanwhile, has asked the Jharkhand government to identify those involved in the recent Aadhaar leak case involving pensioners, saying the guilty may face a jail term of up to three years for violating legal provisions.

The glitch revealed the names, addresses, Aadhaar numbers and bank account details of the beneficiaries of Jharkhand's old-age pension scheme.

Jharkhand has over 1.6 million pensioners, 1.4 million of whom have seeded their bank accounts with their Aadhaar numbers to avail direct bank transfers for monthly pensions.