India reaffirms confidence in Aadhaar technology, slams Moody's concerns

livemint.com:

Also read: Don't have a PAN or Aadhaar number? You cannot claim an income tax refund The Union Ministry of Electronic and IT said that Moody's report "does not cite either primary or secondary data or research in support of the opinions presented in it". Moody's in its report had said that Aadhaar's system often results in service denials, and questioned the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual labourers.

The ministry, addressing the concerns, said that payments to workers under schemes like the country's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are made by directly crediting money in their account and does not require the worker to authenticate using their biometrics. Also read: How much gold can I buy in cash and do I need to submit my ID proof for the same? Moody's has ignored that biometric submission is also possible through contactless means like face authentication and iris authentication, the Central government added.

"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. The government said that no breach has been reported from the Aadhaar database so far.