"Aadhaar data has been leaked", admits Indian Government.

If you have an Aadhaar Card and if your bank accounts and other sensitive information are linked to it, chances are that your data is no longer secure.

The unique identification number issued by the government, Aadhaar, has been growing to become an integral part of our day to day life. From getting admission for children in schools to paying our annual income tax, Aadhar Card had become mandatory for every process in India. However, the downside of storing this biometric data has been unveiled which brings back people’s fear of the dark web. According to a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology that has been leaked online, Aadhaar has been hacked, and the data of various Aadhar card holders has been leaked online.

A letter written by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, confirms the data, which the government has been cautiously guarding, has been leaked online.

For the first time, the Modi government has officially acknowledged that personal identity of individuals, including Aadhaar number and demographic information and other sensitive personal data such as bank account details etc. collected by various Ministries/Departments... has been reportedly published online and is accessible through an easy online search has been leaked to the public domain.

The government, in the recent past, had ignored all warnings and criticisms about the UID data being sensitive and has been aggressively pushing for its adoption across services and platforms.

The main argument against the Aadhaar has been that it infringes upon the citizen’s right to privacy, which flows from Article 21 that talks about the fundamental right to life. A petition filed in the Supreme Court in January said that citizens were required to give their biometric information – iris and fingerprint scans – when there is no system that assures them that this data is safe and would not be misused by the private agencies collecting the data.