Hyderabad: Various government departments in the state have revealed Aadhaar details on their websites. The details pertain to students and beneficiaries of various welfare schemes of the government, claiming scholarships, fee reimbursement, social security pensions, public distribution system, NREGA, Arogyasri etc. The government linked all the welfare schemes to Aadhaar and implemented Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to credit the amount directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. All departments collected Aadhaar details and bank account numbers of lakhs of beneficiaries, which were uploaded on their websites.
The Aadhaar details of 15 lakh students applying for scholarships and fee reimbursement scheme, 35 lakh beneficiaries of social security pensions, and 90 lakh ration card holders were collected by various departments. Aadhar and bank account details of lakhs of students pursuing higher education in professional colleges were also collected by the colleges and uploaded on their websites. In July, the government blocked these details after the UIDAI directed all state governments not to disclose these details as the Supreme Court had started hearing petitions on Aadhar privacy.
UIDAI deputy director M V Rami Reddy said, “The Aadhaar Act prohibits disclosure of Aadhaar details. They should not be kept in public domain. There is a threat of unscrupulous elements misusing the data. We have issued instructions to AP and TS governments to remove Aadhar data from online platforms and now there is no such problem." News of the leaking of Aadhaar data created a furore. A report by the Centre for Internet Society in May 2017 revealed that the Aadhaar data of 13 crore people was leaked. Following this, the Centre directed all states to remove Aadhaar data from their websites.
