“Over A Billion Indians…”: Centre Counters Moody’s Aadhaar Criticism

New Delhi:

Responding to global credit agency Moody’s claims that Aadhaar poses privacy and security risks, and the use of its biometric technology in humid climates is unreliable, Centre on Monday termed the assertions baseless and lacking evidence. 

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) strongly refuted Moody’s allegations that the Aadhaar system frequently causes service denials, particularly for manual labourers in hot and humid climates.

“A certain investor service has, without citing any evidence or basis, made sweeping assertions against Aadhaar, the most trusted digital ID in the world. Over the last decade, over a billion Indians have expressed their trust in Aadhaar by using it to authenticate themselves over 100 billion times. To ignore such an unprecedented vote of confidence in an identity system is to imply that the users do not understand what is in their own interest,” the government said in a statement. 

The statement added that global bodies like the IMF and the World Bank have praised Aadhaar, and many countries have reached out to the UIDAI to understand how to implement similar digital ID systems.

In its report, Moody’s warned that centralised systems with a single point of control over users’ identification credentials and access to online resources pose security and privacy risks to users.

“The report in question does not cite either primary or secondary data or research in support of the opinions presented in it. The investor service did not make any attempt to ascertain facts regarding the issues raised with regard to UIDAI. The sole reference cited in the report is in respect of the UIDAI, by referring to its website,” the government’s statement read. 

The government said Moody’s report failed to mention that biometric submissions can also be contactless, such as through face authentication and iris authentication.

“In addition, the option of mobile OTP is also available in many use cases. The report also avers that there are security and privacy vulnerabilities in a centralised Aadhaar system. The factual position in this regard has been repeatedly disclosed in response to Parliament questions, where Parliament has been categorically informed that till date no breach has been reported from the Aadhaar database,” the statement said. 

Workers do not need to provide biometric authentication to seed their Aadhaar numbers in the MGNREGS database, nor do they need it to receive payments under the scheme, the government insisted. 

Earlier this month, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) document, prepared by the World Bank, praised the transformative impact of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in India over the past decade under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.