Digital identities of more than a million citizens have been compromised by a programming error on a website maintained by the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security. The glitch revealed the names, addresses, Aadhaar numbers and bank account details of the beneficiaries of Jharkhand’s old age pension scheme. Jharkhand has over 1.6 million pensioners, 1.4 million of whom have seeded their bank accounts with their Aadhaar numbers to avail of direct bank transfers for their monthly pensions. The publishing of Aadhaar numbers is in contravention of Section 29 (4) of the Aadhaar Act. In Jharkhand, officials were surprisingly sanguine about the breach, suggesting that they had been aware of the situation for several days.

Source: Hindustan Times April 22, 2017 16:42 UTC