Page 3 - English Tehelka Issue 1&2

National Issue AD Pages 76:Layout 1 2/27/2012 10:23 PM Page 6

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age, can bec me a habitoc
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excellence, like courage, can become a habitcex llence, like courra Editor’s Note

In credibility crisis UIDAI needs to plug

loopholes rather than targeting media

When AmericAn whistleblower- no data breach? The silence of the IT Ministry, and
in-exile Edward Snowden tweeted clarification by Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar
in the wee hours that the “UAIDAI Prasad arguing that the FIR was “against unknown
is responsible for policies that persons”, seems worrisome as it appears to be an
destroyed the privacy of a billion attempt to muzzle the whistleblower. There is need to
Indians”, within minutes it was understand the sensitivity of the issue because hackers
trending on twitter, essaying the can play havoc with the personal details of people.
mood of the nation. His tweet that Fragile technology needs care and regular monitoring
the journalist (referring to the Tribune) because a tearing hurry and its forced insistence while
exposing the Aadhaar breach deserved an award, not ignoring its cyber misuse would put people at risk of
an investigation, got thousands of retweets and likes financial fraud and data breach thus putting public
within a jiffy. interest to jeopardy. It is a travesty of justice to file FIR
The newspaper investigation had recently exposed against the media house and the reporter by treating
the vulnerability of citizens’ data which is being sold them as accused under charges like cheating and
by unscrupulous people for a paltry sum of Rs 500. impersonation. The UIDAI should order a thorough
The report suggested that any buyer can take full internal investigation into the alleged breach and make
advantage of one’s entire information because the its findings public. There is an urgent need for enacting
government is hell bent on linking virtually everything data protection legislation to reform the policies for
with the Aadhaar. We are forced to link our PAN the sake of privacy of people. It is good that UIDAI has
cards, bank accounts, provident funds, etc. with our recognised the need for a 16-digit temporary Virtual
Aadhaar numbers because threats keep pouring in by ID (VID) instead of Aadhaar number to authenticate
way of SMSs from banks, telecom companies and tax identity for availing services from March 1. The
authorities to get our accounts linked with Aadhaar introduction of KYC (Know Your Customer) and UID
numbers or lose them. tokens to secure security concerns are steps in the right
Ironically, instead of addressing the cyber security
direction.
w
w concerns, the Unique Identification Authority of India
wins ipi india ins iipi in iad
(UIDAI) rubbished the report as “a case of misreporting”
and denied any breach but at the same time lodged
awardwaawardwwawaawardwwa an FIR against the persons involved including the (charanjit ahuja)
journalist who did the story. Why an FIR if there was

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fo o nd year inn a rro w
for the second year in a row or the seco
WeB circulation team Uma shankar tiwari,
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design teAM accounts deepika Rattan, pradeep sharma
A Aw ed fo r E x cellence in JournalisJ m 2011 b y thee Ind ia Chapter o f ceo & editor-in-chief Upendrra Rai Vikram nongmaithem, Anangpal singh printer & publisher
Awarded for Excellence in Journalism 2011 by the India Chapter ofardwwa d
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TEHELK
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Volume 15, Issue no. 1 & 2, 1-31 january 2018, released on 16 january, number of pages including cover 68
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