UIDAI shuts down 50 fraud sites offering Aadhaar services

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has shut down 12 websites and 12 mobile applications available on Google Play store which were offering Aadhaar-related services illegally. UIDAI has further directed authorities for closure of another 26 websites and mobile applications.

“It came to the notice of UIDAI that these websites and mobile applications downloadable through Google Playstore were providing unauthorised Aadhaar related services such as downloading online Aadhaar card, providing status of Aadhaar generation, PVC Aadhaar Card etc., to residents and in that process, they were illegally obtaining the Aadhaar number/enrolment details from the residents,” UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said in a statement.

“UIDAI has not authorised the owners of these mobile applications or websites to extend any Aadhaar related services on its behalf”, the statement further read. Pandey said, “Any Aadhaar-related demographic information can only be shared following the procedures laid down in the Aadhaar Act, 2016.

Any such violation is punishable under Section 38 and Chapter VII of the Aadhaar Act that provides punishment for “whoever, not being authorised by the authority, intentionally accesses or secures, downloads, copies or extracts any data from the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) or stored in any removable storage medium.”