‘Have Not Lost the Challenge Yet’: TRAI Chief On Aadhaar Dare

TRAI chairman RS Sharma had put out his Aadhaar number on Twitter and challenged hackers to reveal his personal data

TRAI Chairman RS Sharma

(Photo: PTI)

Three days after he revealed his Aadhaar number on Twitter, TRAI Chairman RS Sharma penned a column in The Indian Express, explaining and defending his open challenge to hackers that stirred a debate on social media.

In his piece titled ‘Why I gave out my number’, Sharma says that Aadhaar had been blamed for the "vulnerabilities" of other systems. Claiming that the demographic data of Aadhaar is not a secret, Sharma said that the linking was one-way and hence "no harm can be caused if the Aadhaar number is leaked or shared".

Sharma then addressed the concerns put forth by his well-wishers, the general public and the hackers with respect to the dare. Here’s what he said:

To His Well-Wishers

Stating that he had spent a considerable part of his life developing the design of Aadhaar, Sharma emphasised that he understood its functions.

I wanted to prove the larger point that Aadhaar is designed in such a way that it cannot cause harm to the holder, but only empowers him or her.

“You would agree, my dear friends, that at the end of the day if one lacks courage of conviction then one’s life has been a waste,” he said in his piece in The Indian Express.

To the General Public

Speaking in favour of beneficiaries who availed subsidies through Aadhaar, Sharma said it had helped people prove their identity. He further alleged that those attempting to discourage others from sharing their Aadhaar numbers are the people who want to "game the system for tax evasion, benami properties and other such activities".

Sharma then said he had disclosed his details only to reassure people that Aadhaar was safe to share in actual use.

My purpose in engaging in debate is to prove by my own example that Aadhaar number disclosure cannot cause any harm. Aadhaar provides only authentication services and in doing so, the UIDAI does not know where it is linked to, in a federated data model.

RS Sharma in <i>The Indian Express </i>

Reiterating that the vulnerabilities of other systems were blamed on Aadhaar (as in the EPFO case), Sharma said that Aadhaar did not contribute to increasing digital vulnerabilities. He also said that users should set strong passwords and work together with the administration to “harden the systems”.

To the Hackers

Taking a jibe at the hackers, Sharma said that they had found information which a simple Google search could have revealed. Alleging that the "so-called hackers" had attempted to hack his email accounts albeit in vain, after an unsuccessful attempt at penetrating the UIDAI system. He said that the hackers merely “wasted” their time.

On the “one-rupee hack”, Sharma said:

One interesting hack was to deposit one rupee in my account through the marvel of a system called UPI, which has been built by our country to enable financial inclusion on the scale we need. The world is in awe of this technology. But if you define crediting a rupee to an account as hacking, well more people might be happy to be hacked.

Sharma kept posting updates on his challenge yesterday, sharing screenshots of people attempting to deposit money in his account through UPI.

It should be noted that these were not actually attempts to deposit money through UPI, but were actually withdrawal requests, as reported by The Quint here.

Sharma signed off saying he had “thus far not lost the challenge”, and hoped that his dare would put an end to "scaremongering", so the people of India could benefit from the technology.

(With inputs from The Indian Express.)